on of the
Giottesque Painters to the Renaissance.

It is the duty of the historian of painting to trace the beginnings of art
in each of the Italian communities, to differentiate their local styles,
and to explain their mutual connections. For the present generation this
work is being done with all-sufficient thoroughness and accuracy.[118] The
historian of culture, on the other hand, for whom the arts form one
important branch of intellectual activity, may dispense with these
detailed inquiries, and may endeavour to seize the more general outlines
of the subject. He need not weigh in balances the claims of rival cities
to priority, nor hamper his review of national progress by discussing the
special merits of the several schools. Still there are certain broad facts
about the distribution of artistic gifts in Italy which it is necessary to
bear in mind. However much we may desire to treat of painting as a phase
of national and not of merely local life, the fundamental difficulty of
Italian history, its complexity and variety, owing to the subdivisions of
the nation into divers states, must here as elsewhere be acknowledged. To
deny that each of the Italian centres had its own strong personality in
art--that painting, as practised in Genoa or Naples, differed from the
painting of Ferrara or Urbino--would be to contradict a law that has been
over and over again insisted upon already in these volumes.

The broad outlines of the subject can be briefly stated. Surveying the map
of Italy, we find that we may eliminate from our consideration the
north-western and the southern provinces. Not from Piedmont nor from
Liguria, not from Rome nor from the extensive kingdom of Naples, does
Italian painting take its origin, or at any period derive important
contributions.[119] Lombardy, with the exception of Venice, is
comparatively barren of originative elements.[120] To Tuscany, to Umbria,
and to Venice, roughly speaking, are due the really creative forces of
Italian painting; and these three districts were marked by strong
peculiarities. In art, as in politics, Florence and Venice exhibit
distinct types of character.[121] The Florentines developed fresco, and
devoted their genius to the expression of thought by scientific design.
The Venetians perfected oil-painting, and set forth the glory of the world
as it appeals to the imagination and the senses. The art of Florence may
seem to some judges to savour over-much of intellectual