One of the best, but until recent years one of the least known, members of that brilliant group of painters who flourished at Venice in the early half of the sixteenth century was Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556). He practised his art in many parts of Italy, and for that reason has been less generally known than many of his contemporaries. He was a pupil of Alvise Vivarini, but benefited largely by the example of Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. His art is not well seen in the small _St. Jerome_ (No. 1350), which is signed and dated “LOTVS 1500” and must therefore be one of his earliest and least ambitious works, nor in his _Holy Family_ (No. 1351) which was formerly attributed to Dosso Dossi. Replicas have been found of his _Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery_ (No. 1349). [Illustration: PLATE IX.—ANTONELLO DA MESSINA (1430-1479) VENETIAN SCHOOL No. 1134.—PORTRAIT OF A CONDOTTIERE (Portrait d’homme dit le Condottiere) Bust portrait, turned three-quarters to the left. He wears a black doublet, above the collar of which is visible the edge of a white linen under-garment. Under his cap is seen his _zazzara_ of red-brown hair. Painted in oil on panel. Signed: “_1474 Antonellus Messaneus me pinxit._” 1 ft. 1 in. × 11 in. (0·33 × 0·28.)] Although we possess very detailed records of Antonello da Messina (1430-1479), his movements and his life’s work, it is only in recent years that they have been studied with any care. This Sicilian-born artist obviously cannot have set out for Flanders and there have learnt from Jan van Eyck (who died in 1441) the “discovery” of oil as a medium in painting, as Vasari tells us. But he may have seen in Italy a picture by the great Northern artist and from it have acquired some facility in the use of oil and in finishing with glazes of oil panels which had been begun in tempera. He was certainly in Venice in 1475-76, if not earlier, and his _Portrait of a Condottiere_ (No. 1134, Plate IX.), which is characteristically signed and dated _1474 Antonellus Messaneus me pinxit_ belongs to that period of his full maturity. It was purchased at the Pourtalès-Gorgier sale in 1865 for £4767. In any case, the discoveries with which Antonello is credited within a few years completely revolutionised the methods of painting throughout Italy, and prepare us for the wonderful achievements of the later Venetians, who followed and improved upon the Bellini tradition.