To appreciate his value a glance at less progressive contemporaries will suffice. We find Bartolommeo Vivarini normally continuing the routine of the Murano School. In the polyptych at Bologna, done with his elder brother Antonio in 1450, we have with slight Squarcionesque improvements the old attenuated Venetian forms. In the highly decorated Madonna at Naples, dated 1465, we have an intelligent use of both the Squarcionesque realisms, and the refinements of Jacopo Bellini. Figure 243. Later pieces such as the triptych of 1487 at the Frari reveal a heavy-handed imitation of Mantegna, and any little originality of the master soon gets lost in the voluminous output of the shop. Bartolommeo died in the last year of his century, whose fair average he had well represented. His nephew Alvise Vivarini deserves notice as the transmitter of the realism of Antonello da Messina to such artists as Montagna, Cima, and Lorenzo Lotto. As a portraitist he has real power. His great altar-pieces have their bleak and unattractive nobility. Venice greatly honored him in confiding several of the new panels for the Ducal Palace to his care. But since these works of the eighties were soon burned, our view of Alvise remains imperfect. I suspect modern criticism has somewhat exaggerated his importance. He was active from about 1460 to 1503, and his altar-pieces afford the best foils for Giovanni Bellini, as revealing a lesser capacity for growth. [Illustration: FIG. 244. Carpaccio. Prince Hero Taking Leave of his Father (L) and Greeting Ursula (R).—_Venice._ ]