This development was the more remarkable, because until the fifteenth century we do not hear of a single Paduan artist of note. Giotto had left the frescoes of the Arena Chapel within the walls of the “learned city,” and Umbrian influences had later reached her students through Gentile da Fabriano, but these seeds were slow in bearing fruit. The men who painted in the famous basilica of Sant’ Antonio were mostly foreigners. Jacopo d’Avanzo and Altichieri of Verona, Giusto of Florence, belonged to other Italian cities, and although a Paduan guild existed and increased steadily in numbers the results were poor, and the few works which its members produced were feeble imitations of Giottesque or Umbrian originals. The first to raise Paduan art out of obscurity was Francesco Squarcione, who, although “not the best of artists himself,” undoubtedly gave a new direction to painting in his native city, and in a measure earned the title of founder of the school, which has been liberally bestowed upon him. Born in 1394, and by profession a tailor and embroiderer, Squarcione early devoted himself to art, and having inherited some fortune from his father, spent his youth in travelling both in Italy and Greece.[1] During his travels he collected a considerable number of pictures, and made drawings and took casts of ancient marbles, which on his return to Padua he exhibited for the teaching of young artists. By these means he soon obtained great reputation as a master, and as many as a hundred and thirty-seven pupils, he himself tells us, were trained in his school. A man of excellent judgment in art, but of slender powers of execution, who knew how to attract talented pupils to his studio, and who employed them in the production of works which bore his name, is the universal verdict passed upon Squarcione by early writers. The truth of this testimony is tolerably well proved by the curious difference of style visible in the only two authentic works of his that remain, an altar-piece in the gallery of Padua, and a Madonna painted for the Lazzara family. The former is a coarse and unpleasant work, with the hardness of line and heavy colouring that mark Zoppo and the inferior Squarcionesques, while the latter in the dignity of its pose and careful modelling bears evident traces of Mantegna’s hand. Squarcione no doubt possessed a quick eye for discerning talent, and it is his lasting claim on the gratitude of posterity that he at once saw and appreciated the rising genius of the young Mantegna. * * * * * Andrea Mantegna, the greatest of Lombard masters, was born in the neighbourhood of Padua in the year 1431. His father, Biagio, is supposed to have been a small farmer, and Vasari tells us that in his childhood Andrea herded cattle until Squarcione, struck by the boy’s talent for drawing, adopted him as his own son.