We must not quit the classical ground of the Fine Arts without mentioning a process of painting which is closely allied to fresco, and bears the characteristic name of _sgraffito_ (literally, a scratch). This style of painting, or rather of drawing (for the works had the appearance of a large drawing in black crayon), was more generally used for the exterior of buildings, and was produced by covering the wall first with black stucco, then with a second layer of white, and afterwards by removing with an iron instrument the second layer so as to lay bare, in places, the black ground. The most important work executed in this style is the ornamentation of the monastic house of the knights of St. Stephen, at Pisa; this work is by Vasari, to whom also has been attributed--but wrongfully--the invention of _sgraffito_, which was used long before his time. Hitherto we have chiefly confined our remarks to Italy and Italian artists; however, in the consideration of them we have nearly summed up our brief history of fresco. If we would look to France for any remarkable works of this kind, we must refer to the epochs in which Italy sent Simon Memmi to decorate the palace of the popes at Avignon, and Rosso and Primaticcio to adorn that of the kings at Fontainebleau. Prior to this, all we meet with are, at the most, a few primitive, not to say barbarous, subjects, painted here and there, in distemper, by unknown artists, on the walls of churches or monasteries. Among these conventional examples it is, however, only just to distinguish some pictures of powerful effect, if not in execution, at least for the ideas they are intended to convey; we would speak of the “Dance of Death,” or “Dance of the Dead,” like that which existed at Paris in the Cemetery of the Innocents, and another still to be seen in the Abbey of Chaise-Dieu, in Auvergne; legends more than [Illustration: Fig. 244.--“Fraternity of the Cross-bowmen.” (Fresco-Painting of the Fifteenth Century, in the ancient Chapel of St. John and St. Paul, Ghent.)] pictures, and philosophical compositions rather than manifestations of art. Spain, too, has no reason to be proud of her national productions; for, with the exception of the Gothic frescoes still existing in the Cathedral of Toledo, representing the combats between the Moors and the Toledans (pictures specially worthy of the attention of archæologists), the only frescoes of Spanish origin we can mention are the paintings of a few ceilings in the Escurial and in a chapter-room in the Cathedral of Toledo; all the other frescoes must be attributed to Italian artists.