ile
on his mother's death, and bequeathed by him to his brother on condition
that he should finish the picture of _S. Mark_, on which Gentile was
engaged at the time of his death.

GIOVANNI BELLINI was born in 1428 or 1430 and lived to 1516. Albert
Duerer, writing from Venice in 1506, says that "he is very old, but is
still the best in painting."

The greater number of Bellini's pictures are to be found in the
galleries and churches in Venice, all of those which are dated being
the work of his old age. Of his earlier pictures we are fortunate in
having two fine examples in the National Gallery, _Christ's Agony in the
Garden_ (No. 726) and _The Blood of the Redeemer_ (No. 1233). In both of
these the influence of his famous brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, is
traceable,--the former being till lately attributed to him. Both
Giovanni and Gentile worked in Padua, where Mantegna was established, in
1460 or thereabouts, and where another influence, that of the sculptor
Donatello, must have had its effect on the young brothers. Similar in
character, and even more beautiful in some respects, is the _Redeemer_,
a single half figure in a landscape, recently acquired for the
Louvre--the first authentic example of the master in that collection.

In 1464, Giovanni had returned to Venice, and it was some years before
the severe Paduan influence melted before "the sensuous feeling of the
true Venetian temperament." In 1475, however, the arrival of Antonello
da Messina in Venice, bringing with him the practice of painting in oil,
effected a revolution, in which Giovanni, if not one of the foremost,
was certainly one of the most successful in adopting the new method. His
later works, so far from showing any diminution of power, may be said to
anticipate the Venetian style of the sixteenth century in the clearest
manner. One of the chief, dated 1488, is the large altar-piece in the
sacristy of S. Maria di Frari, a _Madonna Enthroned_ with two angels and
four saints. The two little angels are of the utmost beauty; the one is
playing on a lute, and listens with head inclined to hear whether the
instrument is in tune; the other is blowing a pipe. The whole is
perfectly finished and of a splendid effect of colour. To the year 1486
belongs a _Madonna Enthroned with Six Saints_, now in the Academy at
Venice. The famous head of the Doge Loredano in the National Gallery
must have been painted in or after 1501. In 1507, he completed the large
pi