43. The art was essentially aided in its progressive stages of advancement by the liberal patronage of the family of the Medici, at Florence, and by the pontiffs, at Rome. Angelo and Raphael were both employed at Rome by Julius II. and Leo X., as well as by others who succeeded them in the papal chair, in ornamenting the palaces and sacred buildings. Their productions have never been exceeded in any country, and they still remain the objects of careful study by artists of this profession. 44. Titian was also liberally patronised at Rome, and in other parts of Italy, as well as in Spain and Germany, chiefly as a portrait and landscape painter. The unrivalled productions of these great masters, however, were fatal to the art in Italy, since their superior excellence extinguished emulation, by destroying the prospect of equal or superior success. 45. The flourishing state of the art in Italy, for so long a period, might be expected to have produced a taste for its cultivation in other parts of Europe; but this was the case only to a limited extent. No other countries have yet been particularly distinguished for artists in this branch of the fine arts, except Flanders and Holland; and these were chiefly indebted for the distinction to Peter Paul Rubens, of Antwerp, who was born at Cologne, in 1577, and to Paul Van Rhyn Rembrandt, who was born in 1606, in his father's mill, near Leyden. Some of the scholars of these masters were eminent painters. Anthony Vandyck, a pupil of the former, in particular, is said to have never yet been equalled as a portrait-painter. 46. Very little is known of the art in Spain, until about the year 1500, although it is supposed to have been cultivated with some success before that time. The examples which were left there by Titian produced a favorable impression, and several native artists of considerable eminence afterwards appeared; but the art became nearly extinct in the following age. 47. The proximity of France to Italy, and the employment of Leonardo da Vinci and other eminent artists of Italy by Francis I., together with the establishment of a school of fine arts, as stated in the preceding article, might have been expected to lay the foundation of exalted taste in this kingdom. Nevertheless, the only French painters whose names have come down to us with any pretensions to excellence for one hundred and fifty years, were Jean Cousin, Jaques Blanchard, Nicholas Poussin, and Charles Le Brun. The last, although inferior to Poussin, is at the head of the French school of painting.