PAINTING. 87 
Were we to institute a comparison between Batoni and Mengs, the two 
restorers of painting in Rome, we could not do better than adopt the words 
of Chevalier Boni, who says: “ Mengs was made a painter by philosophy, 
and Batoni by nature. Batoni hada natural taste which led him to the beauti- 
ful without effort; Mengs attained the same object by reflection and study. 
The gifts of the Muses belonged by nature to Batoni, as they formerly had to 
Apelles; while the highest attainments of art were allotted to Mengs, as in 
former days to Protogenes. The former perhaps was more of a painter than 
a thinker, the latter more of a thinker than a painter. The one perhaps was 
more perfect in his art, but more studied ; the other was less profound, but 
more natural.” It is but justice to add, however, that Mengs’s mannerism and 
unnatural coloring place him much below the first artists of the present day. 
b. The Florentine School. Cimabue was looked upon by the Florentines 
as a prodigy when he ventured to lay aside the Byzantine manner and 
give more movement to his figures. At the time when king Charles, the 
brother of St. Louis, was crowned king of Sicily, he was shown as a great 
curiosity the picture on which Cimabue was then engaged, a Madonna and 
Child accompanied by six angels. This picture is still preserved in the 
church of Sta. Maria Novella. Among the contemporaries of Cimabue 
deserving of notice are Ugolino of Siena and Gaddo Gaddi, from whose 
school proceeded a great number of painters. Here too belongs Giotto, 
born in Vespignano in the year 1276. A sheep which he had drawn on a 
flat stone while tending his flock had attracted the attention of Cimabue; 
the latter took him home to educate him as a painter, and so rapid was his 
progress that the pupil soon surpassed his master and applied himself with 
equal success to sculpture and architecture. Art is greatly indebted to 
Giotto, especially in respect to drapery, expression, grace, and softness, and 
because he was the first to venture on foreshortenings. Among the most im- 
portant works of Giotto are the Histories from the life of St. Francis of Assisi 
and Entombment of the Virgin in Florence. Among the pupils of Giotto 
we may mention Taddeo Gaddi, Puccio Capanna, and Stefano of Florence, 
who endeavored to surpass his master, and whose pupil Maso or Tomaso 
painted a Madonna della Preta in Florence and several frescoes in Assisi. 
From this time onward art kept constantly ascending to higher flights 
through the exertions of Memmi, Angelo Gaddi, Barocchio, Giovanni 
da Fiesole, and others; with Masaccio the last remnants of the ancient 
stiffness and constraint disappeared, and art soared aloft at length with 
perfect freedom. Masaccio, whose real name was Tomaso Guidi, was born 
1402 in St. Giovanni in the Val d’ Arno, and his chief study was nature, 
which he portrayed with grace and spirit. He died in 1443, and was 
succeeded by Filippo Lippi and Andrea del Castagno, who introduced into 
the Florentine school the art of oil-painting, invented by Johann van Eyck, 
a Fleming, after he had wormed the secret out of Domenico Veneziano and 
then murdered him. 
Among the pupils of Filippo Lippi those who distinguished themselves 
were Sandro Boticelli and Luca Signorelli, especially the latter, who, 
according to Vasari, first paved for artists the way to perfection, by 
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