With the sixteenth century commenced the age of the great Italian painters. In 1515, Francis I. persuaded Leonardo da Vinci to come to France, and to afford the example of his wonderful genius. But the illustrious creator of “La Gioconda” (the famous portrait of Mona Lisa), burthened with years and worn out with work, visited France as if only to draw his last breath (1519). Andrea del Sarto, the graceful pupil of the severe Michael Angelo, came to France in 1517; but, after having painted for his royal protector a few pictures, among which was the magnificent “Charity” in the Louvre, he again repaired to the Italian soil, to which his unhappy marriage recalled him to his doom. In 1520 Raphael died, at the age of only thirty-seven years. Giulio Pippi (called _Giulio Romano_), Francis Penni (called _il Fattore_), and Perino del Vaga, whom he named as his heirs and charged with the completion of his unfinished works, did their best to replace the illustrious dead. For a short time it might have been thought that the inspiration of the master still remained with his pupils; but soon a separation of this group of artists, who had found their principal power in unity of thought, took place; and, fifteen or twenty years after the tomb had closed on Raphael, the tradition of his school was nothing more than a glorious ruin. Michael Angelo, who died in 1563, was destined to have a longer career; but it was only to become a witness of the rapid decadence of the great movement he had helped to call forth. After Daniele di Volterra, the painter of the “Descent from the Cross,” which is classed among the three most beautiful works that Rome possesses; after Vasari, who possessed a double title to celebrity as a skilful painter and the historian of the Italian schools; after Rosso, whose renown subsequently suffered at the court of France; and Bronzino, who sought success in taste and delicacy; the school of the great Buonarotti produced nothing but works which seemed to wander from exaggeration to bad taste. The dwarfs who attempted to walk in the footsteps of the giant were soon exhausted, and only succeeded in rendering themselves ridiculous. The Venetian school, the great masters of which did not become extinct before the end of the sixteenth century, had its period of decadence at a later epoch; this will not come under our consideration. The Lombard school, which, by the deaths of Correggio and Parmigianino, had been left without its chiefs before the middle of this century (1534 and 1540), seemed for a moment as if it would disappear as it had risen. But in Michael Angelo Caravaggio (Fig. 255) it met with a powerful master, who was able for some time to arrest the progress of its decadence. [Illustration: Fig. 255.--“The Tribute Money.” Picture by Caravaggio (Sixteenth Century), in the Florence Gallery.]