at the freer method, not imitating its classicism but
giving his themes a broader treatment. The Northern temperament
failed to grasp the spirit of the South, and figures grew gross and
loose in the exaggerated drawing. Borders, however, show no such
deterioration; the attention to detail to which the old school was
accustomed was here continued and with good effect. No stronger
evidence is needed than some of these half savage portrayals of life
in the Sixteenth Century to declare the classic method an exotic in
Flanders.

But with the passing of the old Gothic method, there was little need
for other cartoonists than the Italian, so infinitely able and
prolific were they. Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Giulio
Romano, these are among the artists whose work went up to Brussels
workshops and to other able looms of the day. We can fancy the fair
face of Andrea's wife being lovingly caressed by the weaver's fingers
in his work; we can imagine the beauties of Titian, the sumptuousness
of Veronese's feasts, and the fat materialism of Giulio Romano's heavy
cherubs, all contributing to the most beautiful of textile arts.

Still earlier, Mantegna supplied a series of idealised Pompeian
figures exquisitely composed, set in a lacy fancy of airy
architectural detail, in which he idealised all the gods of Olympus.
Each fair young goddess, each strong and perfect god, stood in its
particular niche and indicated its _penchant_ by a tripod, a peacock,
an apple or a caduceus, as clue to the proper name. Such airy beauty,
such dainty conception, makes of the gods rulers of aesthetics, if not
of fate. This series of Mantegna was the inspiration two centuries
later of the _Triumphs of the Gods_, and similar hangings of the
newly-formed Gobelins.

Giulio Romano drew, among other cartoons, a set of _Children Playing_,
which were the inspiration later at the Gobelins for Lebrun's _Enfants
Jardiniers_.

As classic treatment was the mode in the Sixteenth Century, so classic
subject most appealed. The loves and adventures of gods and heroes
gave stories for an infinite number of sets. As it was the fashion to
fill a room with a series, not with miscellaneous and contrasting
bits, several tapestries similar in subject and treatment were a
necessity. The gods were carried through their adventures in varying
composition, but the borders in all the set were uniform in style and
measurement.

In those prolific days, when ideas were