ul religion, which had been her
strength, I am content to name one chief representative artist at
Venice, John Bellini.

216. Let me now map out for you roughly the chronological relations of
these five men. It is impossible to remember the minor years, in dates;
I will give you them broadly in decades, and you can add what finesse
afterwards you like.

Recollect, first, the great year 1480. Twice four's eight--you can't
mistake it. In that year Michael Angelo was five years old; Titian,
three years old; Raphael, within three years of being born.

So see how easily it comes. Michael Angelo five years old--and you
divide six between Titian and Raphael,--three on each side of your
standard year, 1480.

Then add to 1480, forty years--an easy number to recollect, surely; and
you get the exact year of Raphael's death, 1520.

In that forty years all the new effort and deadly catastrophe took
place. 1480 to 1520.

Now, you have only to fasten to those forty years, the life of Bellini,
who represents the best art before them, and of Tintoret, who represents
the best art after them.

217. I cannot fit you these on with a quite comfortable exactness, but
with very slight inexactness I can fit them firmly.

John Bellini was ninety years old when he died. He lived fifty years
before the great forty of change, and he saw the forty, and died. Then
Tintoret is born; lives eighty[42] years after the forty, and closes, in
dying, the sixteenth century, and the great arts of the world.

Those are the dates, roughly; now for the facts connected with them.

John Bellini precedes the change, meets, and resists it victoriously to
his death. Nothing of flaw or failure is ever to be discerned in him.

Then Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Titian, together, bring about the
deadly change, playing into each other's hands--Michael Angelo being the
chief captain in evil; Titian, in natural force.

Then Tintoret, himself alone nearly as strong as all the three, stands
up for a last fight; for Venice, and the old time. He all but wins it at
first; but the three together are too strong for him. Michael Angelo
strikes him down; and the arts are ended. "Il disegno di Michael
Agnolo." That fatal motto was his death-warrant.

218. And now, having massed out my subject, I can clearly sketch for you
the changes that took place from Bellini, through Michael Angelo, to
Tintoret.

The art of Bellini is centrally represented by two pictures at Venic