Produced by Darleen Dove, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) FAMOUS EUROPEAN ARTISTS BY SARAH K. BOLTON AUTHOR OF "POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," "GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," "STORIES FROM LIFE," "FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS," "FAMOUS AMERICAN STATESMEN," "SOCIAL STUDIES IN ENGLAND," "FROM HEART AND NATURE," "FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE," ETC. "Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live, and it is in your power."--MARCUS AURELIUS. NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 46 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. C. J. PETERS & SON, TYPOGRAPHERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, 146 HIGH STREET, BOSTON. TO MISS ELIZABETH C. BULLARD WITH THE APPRECIATION AND ESTEEM OF THE AUTHOR. [Illustration: MICHAEL ANGELO.] PREFACE. Hermann Grimm says, "Reverence for what is great is a universal feeling.... When we look at great men, it is as if we saw a victorious army, the flower of a people, marching along.... They all speak one common language, know nothing of castes, of noble or pariah; and he who now or in times to come thinks or acts like them rises up to them, and is admitted into their circle." Possibly, by reading of these great men some may be led to "think and act like them," and thus "be admitted into their circle." All of these possessed untiring industry and a resolute purpose to succeed. Most were poor in early life. S. K. B. CONTENTS. PAGE. MICHAEL ANGELO 7 LEONARDO DA VINCI 66 RAPHAEL OF URBINO 105 TITIAN 155 MURILLO 203 RUBENS 246 REMBRANDT 286 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 318 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER 367 TURNER 396 MICHAEL ANGELO. Who has ever stood in Florence, and been warmed by her sunlight, refreshed by her fragrant flowers, and ennobled by her divine art, without saying with the poet Rogers,-- "Of all the fairest cities of the earth, None is so fair as Florence. 'Tis a gem Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth When it emerged from darkness! Search within, Without, all is enchantment! 'Tis the Past Contending with the Present; and in turn Each has the mastery." Pitiful in her struggles for freedom, the very centre of art and learning in the fifteenth century, she has to-day a charm peculiarly her own. "Other though not many cities have histories as noble, treasures as vast; but no other city has them living, and ever present in her midst, familiar as household words, and touched by every baby's hand and peasant's step, as Florence has.