The method I follow in treating of each school is analogous to that prescribed to himself by Sig. Antonio Maria Zanetti,[9] in his _Pittura Veneziana_, a work of its kind highly instructive, and well arranged. What he has done, in speaking of his own, I have attempted in the other schools of Italy. I accordingly omit the names of living painters, and do not notice every picture of deceased artists, as it would interrupt the connexion of the narrative, and would render the work too voluminous, but content myself with commending some of their best productions. I first give a general character of each school; I then distinguish it into three, four, or more epochs, according as its style underwent changes with the change of taste, in the same way that the eras of civil history are deduced from revolutions in governments, or other remarkable events. A few celebrated painters, who have swayed the public taste, and given a new tone to the art, are placed at the head of each epoch; and their style is particularly described, because the general and characteristic taste of the age has been formed upon their models. Their immediate pupils, and other disciples of the school, follow their great masters; and without a repetition of the general character, reference is made to what each has borrowed, altered, or added to the style of the founder of the school, or at most such character is cursorily noticed. This method, though not susceptible of a strict chronological order, is, on account of the connexion of ideas, much better adapted to a history of art than an alphabetic arrangement, which too frequently interrupts the notices of schools and eras; or than the method pursued in annals, by which we are often compelled to make mention of the scholar before the master, should he survive the former; or that of separate lives, which introduces much repetition, by obliging the writer to bestow praises on the pupil for the same style which he also commends in the master, and to notice in each individual that which was the general character of the age in which he lived.