I have assembled some examples

§ 16. In Plate 10. I have assembled some examples, which will give the reader a sufficient knowledge of mediæval rock-drawing, by men whose names are known. They are chiefly taken from engravings, with which the reader has it in his power to compare them,and if, therefore, any injustice is done to the original paintings the fault is not mine; but the general impression conveyed is quite accurate, and it would not have been worth while, where work is so deficient in first conception, to lose time in insuring accuracy of facsimile. Some of the crags may be taller here, or broader there, than in the original paintings; but the character of the work is perfectly preserved, and that is all with which we are at present concerned. decorative paintings

10. Geology of the Middle Ages.

Figs. 1. and 5. are by Ghirlandajo; 2. by Filippo Pesellino; 4. by Leonardo da Vinci; and 6. by Andrea del Castagno. All these are indeed workmen of a much later period than Dante, but the system of rock-drawing remains entirely unchanged from Giotto's time to Ghirlandajo's;—is then altered only by an introduction of stratification indicative of a little closer observance of nature, and so remains until Titian's time. Fig 1. is exactly representative of one of Giotto's rocks, though actually by Ghirlandajo; and Fig. 2. is rather less skilful than Giotto's ordinary work. Both these figures indicate precisely what Homer and Dante meant by "cut" rocks. They had observed the concave smoothness of certain rock fractures as eminently distinctive of rock from earth, and use the term "cut" or "sculptured" to distinguish the smooth surface from the knotty or sandy one, having observed nothing more respecting its real contours than is represented in Figs. 1. and 2., which look as if they had been hewn out with an adze. Lorenzo Ghiberti preserves the same type, even in his finest work. canvas paintings for sale

Fig. 3., from an interesting sixteenth century MS. in the British Museum (Cotton, Augustus, A. 5.), is characteristic of the best later illuminators' work; and Fig. 5., from Ghirlandajo, is pretty illustrative of Dante's idea of terraces on the purgatorial mountain. It is the road by which the Magi descend in his picture of their Adoration, in the Academy of Florence. Of the other examples I shall have more to say in the chapter on Precipices; meanwhile we have to return to the landscape of the poem. oil painting on canvas for sale