The Italian schools of painting Author:Franz Kugler Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTEB XIIl. TRE BOLOGNESE SCHOOL. In Bologna a transition from Byzantine restraint to a certain feeling for nature is seen in the first half of the fourt... more »eenth century. The names of a few painters who belong to that period, and whose works have been preserved to us, may be mentioned; but they were for the most part mere workmen of little ability, and very inferior to their contemporaries in other parts of Italy. They cannot be said to have founded a school. Their productions are distinguished by no special character, either in conception or in execution ; but are the mere rude efforts of ignorant, unskilled craftsmen, who sought to imitate, or copy, the works of men scarcely more capable than themselves, which were brought by way of trade or devotion to the city. It was not until the Caracci appeared that Bologna can claim to have had a school of its own. To Vitale, who, from his frequent pictures of the Virgin, attained the name of " dalle Madonne," are attributed works in the public gallery of Bologna, with forged signatures and dates. By one Andrea da Bologna, an imitator of Vitalc's manner, there is a Virgin and Child of rude execution in the church of the " Sacramento" at Pausola near Macerata, signed, and dated 1372. Another follower of Vitale, more worthy of record, and who has obtained a reputation, through municipal vanity, far above his deserts, is Lippo Dalmasii, (i.e. the son of Dalmasius), born about 1376. A signed, but undated work, by him—a Virgin and Child—is in the National Gallery. Various frescoes and other works attributed to him are pointed out at Bologna. They scarcely warrant the place assigned to him by his countrymen as apainter of eminence and the founder of a school. Among his scholars is numbered, an Ursuline Nun, the Beata Caterina Vigri. Coa...« less