ANIMAL LIFE IN ITALIAN PAINTING 



Giovanni 

 Bellini, 



I430(?)-I5i6 



at any rate got the shape of the body right, and the 

 proportion between the length of the front and back 

 legs. If Gentile had not seen the Medici giraffes, he 

 could have used the description of Marco Polo, which 

 would be current in Venice, where he returned after his 

 travels in 1295, and lived, after his imprisonment in 

 Genoa, until 1324. "The body," he says, "is well 

 proportioned, the fore-legs long and high, the hind- 

 legs short ; the neck is long, the head small, and in 

 its manners it is gentle. Its prevailing colour is light, 

 with circular reddish spots. Its height (or length of its 

 neck) is three paces." 1 



Dr. F. R. Martin has published (in the Burlington 

 Magazine, 19 10) drawings of a gazelle or antelope and 

 a hare which he found in Constantinople. He believes 

 them to have been done while Gentile was engaged on 

 his embassy there. 



In a picture of his school, Afadonna and Child 

 Enthroned (National Gallery), a goldfinch with out- 

 stretched wings ready to take flight stands on the 

 brocaded robe of the Madonna. In another, the Visit 

 of the Venetian Ambassadors (Louvre), there are deer, a 

 monkey, and two shaggy Bactrian camels. 



Mr. Roger Fry discusses the horses in the scene of 

 the Conversion of St. Paul in the predella of the Pesaro 

 altar-piece by Giovanni Bellini. 



* Travels, ch. xxxvii. 

 72 



