Next we have Raphael, _il divino Sanzio_, as he was called by his numerous admirers, whose genius was constantly attaining to grandeur by means of simplicity, and to power by means of reserve. Michael Angelo always seems as if he were only able to represent a limited portion of his gigantic conceptions on the wall he covered with his designs; but it was sufficient for Raphael to place some tranquil figure on a narrow square of canvas, and we have before us the bright image of the most perfect and delicious inspiration. He created for himself a heaven which he peopled with the purest and most venerated types of the human race; and a light, as from on high, beams with regal splendour on these graceful visions. In Raphael, even more than in Leonardo da Vinci, it seemed as if two artists of equal sublimity succeeded one another. At first we have the charming dreamer who, in the fresh enthusiasm of his early youth, creates Madonnas, artless daughters of the earth in whose look and countenance a sacred light shines in all its ineffable purity; next he is the master full of the deepest science, for whom the real beauties of creation have no concealment; who, in representing nature, succeeded in transforming to her the magnificent ideal of which his own soul appears to have received the impression from association with the divine regions. “The principal characteristic of Raphael,” still following the very just remarks of M. Michiels, “is the universality of his fame. It becomes almost painful to hear the vulgar crowd constantly repeating a magic name, the true signification of which they do not understand.” As the spoiled child of fortune, the creator of Virgins and “The Transfiguration,” he is almost without detractors from his fame; and it is impossible to reckon the number of his admirers. “One circumstance in his life affords us an emblem of his destiny. Having sent to Palermo the famous canvas of the ‘Spasimo,’[36] a tempest overwhelmed the ship which carried it; but the waves seemed to respect the _chef-d’œuvre_. After having drifted more than fifty leagues through the sea, the box which enclosed the precious production floated gently on shore at the port of Genoa. The picture was in no way injured. The Sicilian monks, for whom it was intended, did not fail to claim it; and since that time, thanks to the mercy of the waves, it attracts to the foot of Etna numerous pilgrims to the shrine of genius.” At Venice, we first have Titian, the painter of Charles V. and Francis I. “The genius of Titian,” says Alexander Lenoir, “is always great and noble. No painter has ever produced flesh-colours so beautiful and life-like. In Titian there is no apparent tone; the colouring of his flesh is so well blended, that it seems as difficult to imitate as the model itself. Add to his pictures their truth and expression of action, and the elegance and richness of the drapery, and we shall have some idea of the great works which he left behind him.”