"The Art of the Emilia, the region that lies between the river Po and the Apennines, has been unduly neglected. Here there once dwelt a vigorous and gifted race, as original in their way as the Umbrians, Tuscans or Venetians, who found means of self-expression in form and colour under the political security of the Court of Este, and whose art forms an organic whole with stages of development and decay, characteristically differing, like their dialect, from that of other parts of Italy.... The traveller visiting the now deserted city of Ferrara, who meditates on its records of the past, may still in fancy see erected again the triumphal arches which welcomed emperors, popes and princes in the 'quattro-cento'; the gilded barges ascending the river to the city; the platforms draped with the arras, on which were woven in gold and silk stories of cavaliers in tilt and tourney; the duke in his robes, stiff with brocade of gold and covered with gems, bearing a jewelled sceptre in his hand; the magnificently caparisoned steeds; the princesses who came in their chariots of triumph, to be brides of the house of Este.... To trace the various processes, alike of thought, feeling and technique, which have gone to the making of a masterpiece of Correggio, L'Ortolano or Dosso is a fascinating pursuit. Only through knowledge of the tentative efforts of their predecessors at the splendid jovial court of the Este, is it possible to get a total impression. Born, as elsewhere, in bondage to rigid types and forms of composition, Ferrarese genius began by being profoundly dramatic and realistic. The masters of 1450 to 1475, well grounded in geometry, perspective and anatomy, painted rather what they saw than what they felt. Their aim was to conventionalise Nature rather than to transfigure her, and truth was more to them than beauty. The next generation, 1475 to 1500, developed technique so as to express movement and emotion, tempered by the eternal charm of antique ideals, till upon this sure foundation there arose men of high imagination and sentiment, who grasped and solved the mysteries of tone and colour, as distinguished from a brilliant palette" (R. H. Benson and A. Venturi in Burlington Fine Arts Club's Catalogue, 1894). Of the first or Giottesque period of the school no pictures survive, and the founder of the school, so far as we can now study it, is Cosimo Tura, who occupies the same place in the art of Ferrara as Piero della Francesca occupied in that of Umbria, or Mantegna in that of Padua. Look at his picture (772): one sees at once that here is something different from other pictures, one feels that one would certainly be able to recognise that "rugged, gnarled, and angular" but vigorous style again. Doubtless there was some Flemish influence upon the school (see the notes on Tura, No. 772); and doubtless also the Ferrarese were influenced by the neighbouring school of Squarcione at Padua. But the pictures of