The origin of the Sienese school is deduced either from the crusades in the east, whence some Grecian painter has been brought to Siena; or from Pisa, which, as we have seen, had its first artists from Greece. On such a question every one may judge for himself: to me the data necessary for resolving it appear to be wanting. I know that Italy was never destitute of painters, and artists who wrought in miniature; that from such, without any Grecian aid, or example, some Italian schools took their origin. Siena must have had them in the twelfth century. The _Ordo officiorum Senensis Ecclesiæ_ which is preserved in the library of the academy at Florence, was written in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and exhibits initial letters, surrounded with illuminations of little stories and ornaments of animals. They are painted in vermilion, in a very hard and meagre style; but they are valuable on account of their era, 1213, in which they were executed by Oderico Canonico of Siena.[250] Similar books were ornamented by the same painter in the parchment of the leaves, and painted on the covers without;[251] and afford a proof that thus the art of ornamenting with miniatures might lead to large compositions. All, however, more or less, savour of the Greek design; either because the Italians were originally disciples of the Greeks, dispersed over Italy, or because they regarded the Grecian masters as models, and ventured not to attempt much beyond them. The most ancient pictures in the city, the Madonna _of the Graces_, the Madonna of Tressa, the Madonna of Bethlehem, a S. Peter in the church dedicated to that saint, and a S. John the Baptist, surrounded by many small historical representations at S. Petronilla, are believed to be older than 1200; but it is by no means clear that they are the works of Italians, though often believed such from their initial characters, plaister, and design. On the two last the names of the saints near the figures are in Latin characters; a circumstance, however, which does not prove an Italian painter. On the mosaic works at Venice, on the Madonna of Camerino, brought from Smyrna,[252] and on other pictures executed by the Greeks for Italian cities, ignorant of their language, they wrote, or got others to write, inscriptions in Latin; and they did the same on statues.[253] The method of painting on gilt plaister, which we observe in some old pictures, decidedly Italian, is no argument; for I have several times observed a similar practice in what was unquestionably the work of a Greek artist. The drawing of the features in those pictures, the grimness of the aspect, and the composition of the stories, all accord with the productions of the Greeks. They may, therefore, have been painted by Greek artists, or by a scholar, or, at least, by an imitator of the Greeks. Who, then, can determine whence the artist came, whether he was a restorer of painting, and whether he executed those