The name of Attavante, so famous as a Florentine miniaturist, reminds me of a Petrarch manuscript which I have seen sold in Paris as illustrated by him. One of the illuminations contained a bust of a Roman warrior, in the style so frequently seen in Italian work of about the year 1500, and under it were the initials M.A., intended evidently for Marcus Aurelius or Marcus Antonius. Out of them, the cataloguers of two different collections of great repute, had evolved the idea that they stood for "Maestro Attavante"--an absurd notion for which there was absolutely no excuse whatever. Other famous Italian miniaturists were Girolamo dai Libri of Verona, and Sigismondo da Carpio. I have had examples of the art of both. One still more celebrated was Giulio Clovio, but he belonged entirely to the sixteenth century and to the late Renaissance, and his work is in nowise that of the Middle Ages. It is over-florid and reveals the theatrical splendour which always accompanies decline. I have possessed one of his finest examples, which was formerly in the Towneley library. During the last twenty years of the fifteenth century, a favourite style of border among the Italians was an imitation of goldsmith's work. Gems of various colours set in gold, with cameos or medallions of classic busts, were the chief feature, but spaces were always left in which the miniaturist could paint his tiny exquisite figures of the fight between David and Goliath, or something of the kind. Venetian {82}examples of such miniatures are remarkably beautiful--the beauty mingled with a certain gravity of manner; those which are of Roman origin have an air of masterly splendour; but those which were produced at Florence between 1480 and 1510 are so lovely as to upset our critical judgment in comparing them with work done at Bruges. In the border-illustration there never was any resemblance between the work of Italy and that of other countries, and there can be no hesitation in deciding between them in favour of Italy as more appropriately decorative.