78 MORE POT-POURRI 



both German and Italian. For those who wish to under- 

 stand modern criticism and the altering of long-accepted 

 catalogues attributing pictures to wrong artists I can 

 most strongly recommend ' Italian Painters,' by Giovanni 

 Morelli (John Murray), translated into English by Con- 

 stance Jocelyn Ffoulkes. Giovanni Morelli lived at 

 Bergamo in Lombardy. He left as a legacy to his native 

 town a small but very remarkable collection of pictures, 

 the chief treasures of which are Dutch masterpieces. I 

 imagine the ' Italian Painters ' is almost the root of the 

 kind of modern criticism which has torn from us of the 

 older generation many of the faiths of our youth. For 

 instance, the famous Guide's ' Cenci ' of the Barberini 

 Palace for more than a century drew tears of pity from the 

 eyes of poets and their followers as being a most tender 

 representation of a famous criminal painted in prison, who, 

 but for this supposed portrait of her, would never have 

 been known to posterity. Asa fact she was executed six or 

 seven years before Guido arrived in Borne. Neither is the 

 picture a Guido at all, but a study by some inferior painter 

 of an unknown model. At least, this, I believe, is the 

 last word on the subject. The favourite portrait of 

 Eaphael by himself in the Louvre, leaning on his hand, 

 is not a portrait of him, nor is the picture painted by him. 

 The great Holbein at Dresden is said now not to be the 

 original, which is at Darmstadt ; and so on. In this 

 Frankfort gallery there is an extraordinarily fine and 

 interesting female portrait, hitherto attributed to Sebas- 

 tiano del Piombo, but now supposed to be by Sodoma. 

 It is one of the gems of the collection. 



Before leaving England last year (1897) I had been 

 immensely interested at hearing of the open-air treat- 

 ment for phthisis as practised in Germany, the parent 

 establishment of which is at Falkenstein, in the Taunus 

 Mountains, close to Cronberg, where I was staying. I 



