violoncello, while Titian plays the bass. The bride in this picture
is said to be the portrait of Eleanor of Austria, the sister of Charles
V, and second wife of Francis I.'[21]

Though Veronese is not greatly esteemed as a portrait painter, it so
happens that the highly-prized picture of his in our National Gallery,
called 'The Family of Darius before Alexander,' is understood to be
family portraits of the Pisani family in the characters of Alexander,
the Persian queen, etc., etc. Another of Veronese's pictures in the
National Gallery is 'The Consecration of St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra.'

CHAPTER VII.

CARRACCI, 1555-1609--GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642--DOMENICHINO,
1581-1641--SALVATOR ROSA, 1615-1673.

In the falling away of the schools of Italy, and especially of the
followers of Michael Angelo and Raphael, into mannerism and
exaggeration, fitly expressed in delineation of heathen gods and
goddesses, there arose a cluster of painters in the North of Italy who
had considerable influence on art.

The Carracci included a group of painters, the founders of the later
Bolognese School. Lodovico, the elder of the three, was born at Bologna,
1555. He was educated as a painter, and was so slow in his education,
that he received from his fellow-scholars the nickname of 'Il Bue' (the
ox). But his perseverance surmounted every obstacle. He visited the
different Italian towns, and studied the works of art which contained,
arriving at the conclusion that he might acquire and combine the
excellences of each. This combination, which could only be a splendid
patch-work without unity, was the great aim of his life, and was the
origin of the term _eclectic_ applied to his school. Its whole tendency
was to technical excellence, and in this tendency, however it might
achieve its end, painting showed a marked decline. As an example of the
motives and objects supplied by the school, I must borrow some lines
from a sonnet of the period written by Agostino Carracci:

'Let him, who a good painter would be,
Acquire the drawing of Rome,
Venetian action, and Venetian shadow,
And the dignified colouring of Lombardy,
The terrible manner of Michael Angelo,
Titian's truth and nature,
The sovereign purity of Correggio's style,
And the true symmetry of Raphael;

* * * * *

And a little of Parmegiano'a grace,
But without so much study and toil,
Let him only app