With the death of the great Venetians, Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the history of Italian painting of the first rank comes to an end. In Florence, the imitation of Michelangelo was the chief object striven after, and, as might be expected, the attempt was not eminently successful. The greater number of the Italian painters of the early seventeenth century who attained any fame are known by the name of Eclectics, from their having endeavoured, instead of imitating any one of their great predecessors, to select and unite the best qualities of each, without, however, excluding the direct study of nature. The fallacy of this aim, when carried to an extreme, is, of course, that the greatness of the earlier masters consisted really in their individual and peculiar qualities, and to endeavour to unite characteristics essentially different involves a contradiction. The most important of the Eclectic schools was that of the Carracci, at Bologna, which was founded by LODOVICO CARRACCI (_c_. 1555-1619), a scholar of Prospero Fontana and Passignano at Florence. In his youth he was nicknamed "the ox," partly from his slowness, but possibly also for his study of long-forgotten methods, by which he arrived at the decision that reform was necessary to counteract the independence of the mannerists. He therefore obtained the assistance of his two nephews, AGOSTINO and ANNIBALE CARRACCI, sons of a tailor, and in concert with them opened an academy at Bologna in 1589. This he furnished with casts, drawings, and engravings, and provided living models and gave instruction in perspective, anatomy, etc. In spite of opposition this academy became more and more popular, and before long all the other schools of art in Bologna were closed. The principles of their teaching was succinctly expressed in a sonnet written by Agostino, in substance as follows:--"Let him who wishes to be a good painter acquire the design of Rome, Venetian action and chiaroscuro, the dignified colouring of Lombardy (that is to say, of Leonardo da Vinci), the terrible manner of Michelangelo, Titian's truth and nature, the sovereign purity of Correggio, and the perfect symmetry of Raphael. The decorum and well-grounded study of Tibaldi, the invention of the learned Primaticcio, and a _little_ of the grace of Parmigiano."