It would be improper to pass on to another epoch of art, without adverting to the grotesque. This branch of the art is censured by Vitruvius[25] as a creation of portentous monsters beyond the reign of nature, transferring to canvas the dreams and ravings of a disordered fancy, as wild as the waves of a convulsed sea, lashed into a thousand varying forms by the fury of the tempest. This style took its name from the _grotte_, for so those beautiful antique edifices may be called, where paintings of this kind are found, covered with earth, and with buildings of a later period. This style was revived in Rome, where a greater proportion of these ancient specimens is found, and was restored at this epoch. Vasari ascribes the revival of them to Morto da Feltro, and the perfecting of the style to Giovanni da Udine. But he himself, notwithstanding the little esteem he had for Pinturicchio, calls him the friend of Morto da Feltro, and allows that he executed many works in the same manner in Castel S. Angelo. Before him too Pietro his master had painted some of the same kind in the Sala del Cambio, which Orsini says are well conceived, and to him likewise a precedent had been afforded by Benedetto Bonfigli, of whom Taja, in his description of the Vatican palace, says, that he painted for Innocent VIII. in Rome some singularly beautiful grotesques. This branch of art was afterwards cultivated in many of the schools of Italy, particularly in that of Siena. Peruzzi approved of it in architecture, and adopted it in his painting, and gave occasion to Lomazzo to offer a defence of it, and precepts, as I before noticed, and as may be seen in the sixth book of his Trattato della Pittura, chapter forty-eight. [Footnote 4: _Dell'errore, che persiste_, &c. see the second index. It was opposed by Crespi, in his _Dissertazione Anticritica_, referred to in the same index. It was also opposed by P. dell'Aquila, in the _Dizionario portatile della Bibbia, tradotto dal francese_, in a note of some length, on the article S. Luca.] [Footnote 5: See the _Opuscoli Calogeriani_, tom. xliii. where a learned dissertation is inserted, which shews that this custom was introduced about the middle of the fifth century, on occasion of the Council of Ephesus.] [Footnote 6: Engraved by command of the learned Cardinal Borgia. The artists began about the middle of the fifth century, to represent her with the Infant in her arms. See _Opuscoli Calogeriani_, as above.] [Footnote 7: "The painter was a man of holy life, and a Florentine, whose name was Luca, and who was honoured by the common people with the title of saint." Lami, Deliciæ Eruditorum, tom. xv.]