nches
having developed under different circumstances. In Italy, as we have
seen, the Byzantine seed, sown in such fertile soil, attained suddenly a
great luxuriance. In the north, transplanted by Charlemagne to
Aix-la-Chapelle in the ninth century, it grew slowly and more timidly,
but none the less surely, under the cover of Monasticism, in the
manuscripts illuminated with miniatures; and thus when it did burst
forth into fuller blossom, the boldness of the Italian masters, who
worked at large in fresco, was wanting, and a detailed and almost
meticulous realism was its chief characteristic. Another point worth
noticing is that though primarily introduced for religious purposes, as
in Italy, namely the decoration of the cathedral erected by Charlemagne
at Aix-la-Chapelle, the paintings in his palace showed forth events in
his own life, such as his campaigns in Spain, seiges of towns and feats
of arms by Frankish warriors. At Upper Ingelheim, likewise, his chapel
was adorned with scenes from the Old and New Testaments, while the
banqueting hall exhibited on one wall the deeds of great Pagan rulers,
such as Cyrus, Hannibal, and Alexander, and on the other those of
Constantine and Theodosius, the seizure of Acquitaine by Pepin, and
Charlemagne's own conquest over the Saxons and finally himself enthroned
as conqueror. Although no trace remains of these paintings, contemporary
manuscripts executed by his order are still in existence in the
libraries of Paris, Treves, and elsewhere from which we can form some
idea of the style in which they were rendered and of the source from
which they were derived.

Of these we need only mention the Vulgate decorated by JOHN OF BRUGES,
painter to King Charles V. of France, in 1371, which contains a portrait
of the king in profile with a figure kneeling before him, and a few
small historical subjects. From these it is evident that the art of
painting, at any rate in little, had made considerable progress in the
Netherlands at that date, and the express designation of _pictor_
applied to John of Bruges, while the ordinary miniaturist was called
_illuminator_, shows the probability of his having painted pictures on a
larger scale. The high development of realistic feeling as it first
appears to us in the pictures of Hubert and Jan van Eyck is thus partly
accounted for, especially when we also consider the wholesale
destruction of larger works of art that took place in the disturbed
condition