Gustavo Frizzoni, the author feels bound to ascribe many of his attributions, although a number are based on independent research, and for these he alone is responsible. Special thanks are due to a dear friend, Enrico Costa, for placing his notes of a recent visit to Madrid at the author's disposal. They have been used, with a confidence warranted by Signor Costa's unrivalled connoisseurship, to supplement the author's own notes, taken some years ago. Having noted the dependence of scientific art study upon isochromatic photography, the author is happy to take this opportunity of expressing his gratitude to such able photographers as Loewy of Vienna, Tamme of Dresden, Marcozzi of Milan, Alinari Bros. of Florence, and Dominic Anderson of Rome, all of whom have devoted themselves with special zeal to the paintings of the Venetian masters. The author is peculiarly indebted to Signor Anderson for having materially assisted his studies by photographing many pictures which at present have a scientific rather than a popular interest. The frontispiece is a reproduction of Giorgione's "Shepherd" at Hampton Court, a picture which perhaps better than any other expresses the Renaissance at the most fascinating point of its course. The author is indebted to Mr. Sidney Colvin for permission to make use of a photograph taken at his order. CONTENTS. THE VENETIAN PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE I. VALUE OF VENETIAN ART II. THE CHURCH AND PAINTING III. THE RENAISSANCE IV. PAINTING AND THE RENAISSANCE V. PAGEANT PICTURES VI. PAINTING AND THE CONFRATERNITIES VII. EASEL PICTURES AND GIORGIONE VIII. THE GIORGIONESQUE SPIRIT IX. THE PORTRAIT X. THE YOUNG TITIAN XI. APPARENT FAILURE OF THE RENAISSANCE XII. LOTTO XIII. THE LATE RENAISSANCE AND TITIAN XIV. HUMANITY AND THE RENAISSANCE XV. SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO XVI. TINTORETTO XVII. VALUE OF MINOR EPISODES IN ART XVIII. TINTORETTO'S PORTRAITS XIX. VENETIAN ART AND THE PROVINCES XX. PAUL VERONESE XXI. BASSANO, GENRE, AND LANDSCAPE XXII. THE VENETIANS AND VELASQUEZ XXIII. DECLINE OF VENETIAN ART XXIV. LONGHI XXV. CANALETTO AND GUARDI XXVI. TIEPOLO XXVII. INFLUENCE OF VENETIAN ART INDEX TO THE WORKS OF THE PRINCIPAL VENETIAN PAINTERS INDEX OF PLACES THE VENETIAN PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE =I. Value of Venetian Art.=--Among the Italian schools of painting the Venetian has, for the majority of art-loving people, the strongest and most enduring attraction. In the course of the present brief account of the life of that school we shall perhaps discover some of the causes of our peculiar delight and interest in the Venetian painters, as we come to realise what tendencies of the human spirit their art embodied, and of what great consequence their example has been to the whole of European painting for the last three centuries.