In the fresco of “St. James baptizing Converts” the statuesque air of Squarcione’s school is still strongly felt in the principal figures. The action is stiff, and the faces are mostly wanting in expression. But the spectators of the ceremony are, on the contrary, full of life and animation. Nothing can be more natural than the two children who look on with wondering eyes—the taller of the two holding a water-melon in his hand, while the smaller one presses close to his side—or the youth under the colonnade in the act of turning round to speak to a figure whose face is concealed by a pillar. If from these we turn to the decorative part of the fresco, the winged angels in the upper corners at once remind us of the charming groups of children on Donatello’s bronzes in Sant’ Antonio, and prove how attentively Mantegna must have studied these recently finished works of the Florentine master. The beneficial influence of the great sculptor had already appeared in the earlier frescoes of the Eremitani, and from his example Andrea now learnt how to combine the study of nature with sculptural treatment, and to adopt a more elevated type of human form. The next subject, “St. James before Herod,” reveals a new feature, afterwards to become prominent in his career, in the accurate knowledge of Roman costumes and classical architecture which is here displayed. One of the finest figures is that of a soldier leaning on his lance in the left-hand corner of the picture, an ancient Roman, in whom we recognise immediately the painter’s own portrait, from the close resemblance which his strongly marked features and massive brow bear to the bust on Andrea’s tomb at Mantua. Both of these frescoes show considerable skill in perspective, but in the next, “St. James blessing a kneeling Disciple on his way to Execution,” Mantegna boldly ventures on an experiment that is altogether new. For no apparent reason, but purely as a trial of skill, he suddenly alters the point of sight to a low level, and while the feet of the foremost figures appear to stand on the edge of the picture the lower extremities of those in the background vanish altogether. The difficulties thus created are on the whole correctly solved. Each figure is carefully foreshortened, and the Roman arch under which the procession passes is drawn in admirable perspective, but freedom of action is impaired, and the whole suffers from an unpleasant sense of effort and unnatural constraint. Perspective was in those days a favourite branch of learning in the University of Padua, and Mantegna, whose vigorous genius took pleasure in the driest studies, seems to have derived this strange passion for applying its laws to the human form from Paolo Uccelli, a Florentine who had lately visited Padua. In his ardour to accomplish his self-imposed task he failed to see the mistake of subjecting living figures to the rules of architecture, and of treating