Behold us at length arrived at the golden period of the Venetian School, which like the others of Italy, produced its most distinguished ornaments about the year 1500; artists who at once eclipsed the fame of their predecessors, and the hopes of attaining to equal excellence on the part of their successors. In reaching this degree of eminence, it is true they pursued different paths, though they all aimed at acquiring the same perfection of colouring; the most natural, the most lively, and the most applauded of any single school of the age; a distinction they likewise conferred upon their posterity, forming the distinguishing characteristic of the Venetian painters. The merit of this has been attributed to the climate by some, who assert, that in Venice, and the adjacent places, nature herself has bestowed a warmer and deeper colour upon objects than elsewhere; a frivolous supposition, and undeserving of much of our attention, inasmuch as the artists of Holland and Flanders, in climates so extremely opposite, have obtained the same meed of praise. Neither is it to be attributed to the quality of the colours; both Giorgione and Titian having been known to make use of few, and these, so far from being selected or procured elsewhere, exposed to sale in all the public shops in Venice. If it should again be objected, that in those days the colours were sold purer and less adulterated, I admit there may be some degree of truth in this, inasmuch as Passeri, in his life of Orbetto, complained at that time of the early decay of many pictures, "owing to the quality of the colours fraudulently sold by the retailers." But I would merely inquire, if it were possible, that materials thus pure and uncontaminated should so often fall into the hands of the Venetians and their Flemish imitators, yet be so seldom met with in the rest of the schools. The cause of their superiority is to be sought, therefore, in their mechanism and art of colouring; in regard to which the best Venetian painters conformed, in some points, to the most celebrated artists of Italy. In other points, however, they differed from them. It was a common practice at that period, to prepare with a chalk surface the altarpieces and pictures which were intended to be executed; and that white ground, favourable to every variety of tint the painter could lay upon it, equally favoured the production of a certain polish, floridity, and surprising transparency; a custom which, being laid aside out of indolence and avarice, I am happy to perceive seems about to be renewed. But in addition to this the Venetians were in possession of an art that may be considered peculiar to themselves. For it may be observed, that the chief part of them during these three centuries, produced the effect of their paintings, not so much by a strong layer of colours, as by separate strokes of the pencil; and each colour being thus adapted to its place, without much repeating or