60, for a description of the concord that
reigned in this vast workshop. The genius and the gentle nature of
Raphael penetrated the whole group of artists, and seemed to give them a
single soul.

[259] The fresco of "Alexander" in the Palazzo Borghese is by an
imitator.

[260] The "Madonna di San Sisto" was painted for a banner to be borne in
processions. It is a subtle observation of Rio that the banner, an
invention of the Umbrian school, corresponds in painting to the hymn in
poetry.

[261] See Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, p. 316, for Raphael's letter
on this subject to Leo X.

[262] "La Spasimo di Sicilia" is the single Passion picture of Raphael's
maturity. The predella of "Christ carrying the Cross" at Leigh Court, and
the "Christ showing His Wounds" in the Tosi Gallery at Brescia, are both
early works painted under Umbrian influence. The Borghese "Entombment,"
painted for Atalanta Baglioni, a pen-and-ink drawing of the "Pieta" in
the Louvre collection, Marc Antonio's engraving of the "Massacre of the
Innocents," and an early picture of the "Agony in the Garden," are all
the other painful subjects I can now remember.

[263] For a fuller working out of this analysis I must refer to my
_Sketches in Italy_, article "Parma." Much that follows is a quotation
from that essay.

[264] Much of the controversy about Michael Angelo, which is continually
being waged between his admirers and his detractors, might be set at rest
if it were acknowledged that there are two distinct ways of judging works
of art. We may regard them simply as appealing to our sense of beauty,
and affording harmonious intellectual pleasure. Or we may regard them as
expressing the thought and spirit of their age, and as utterances made by
men whose hearts burned within them. Critics trained in the study of good
Greek sculpture, or inclined by temperament to admire the earlier
products of Italian painting, are apt to pursue the former path
exclusively. They demand serenity and simplicity. Perturbation and
violence they denounce as blemishes. It does not occur to them that,
though the phenomenon is certainly rare, it does occasionally happen that
a man arises whose art is for him the language of his soul, and who lives
in sympathetic relation to the sternest interests of his age. If such an
artist be born when tranquil thought and serene emotions are impossible
for one who feels the meaning of his times with depth, he must either
paint and