If in each of our pictoric schools we have adhered to the plan of tracing back the memorials of more barbarous ages, and thence proceeding to more cultivated periods, Milan more especially as the capital of Lombardy, and the court of the Lombard kings, will afford us an epoch remarkable no less for its lofty character than for the grandeur of its monuments. When Italy passed from the dominion of the Goths to that of the Longobards, the arts, which invariably follow in the train of fortune, transferred their primary seat from Ravenna to Milan, to Monza, and to Pavia. Each of these places still retains traces of the sort of design now entitled, both on account of the place and the time, Longobardic, much in the same manner as in the diplomatic science we distinguish by the same name certain characters peculiar to that age, or rather to those ages, for after the Longobards were driven from Italy, the same taste in writing and sculpture continued to flourish during a great part of them. This style, as exhibited in works, both of metal and of marble, is coarse and hard beyond the example of any preceding age, and is seen most frequently and to most advantage in the representation of monsters, birds, and quadrupeds rather than of human figures. At the cathedral, at S. Michele, and at S. Giovanni in Pavia, appear some friezes over the gates, consisting of animals chained in a variety of ways to one another, sometimes in natural positions, and sometimes with the head turned behind. In the interior of the same churches, as well as in some others, we meet also with capitals, presenting similar figures, not unfrequently united to historical representations of men, differing so much from the human figure as to appear belonging to another species. The same kind of abuse of the art was practised in places under the sway of the Longobard dukes, one of which was the Friuli, which still preserves a number of these barbarous efforts. In Cividale there is a marble altar, first begun by Duke Pemmone, and completed by his son Ratchi, who lived during the eighth century. The bassi-relievi consist of Christ seated between different angels, his Epiphany, and the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin.[38] Art would appear scarcely capable of producing any thing more rude than these figures, yet whoever will be at the pains of examining the frieze on a gate at the same place, or the capitals of the pillars of S. Celso at Milan,[39] works of the tenth century, will admit that it was susceptible of still greater corruption when it added absurdity to its coarseness, and produced distorted and dwarfish figures, all hands and all heads, with legs and feet incapable of supporting them. There are an infinite number of similar marbles, and of like design, at Verona and other places. To these, nevertheless, are opposed other monuments which will not permit us to admit, as a general rule, that every trace of good taste was then extinct in Italy. I might easily adduce instances, drawn