Mediæval painting, properly so called, emerged from the Byzantine types in the thirteenth century. The superstitious rigor of symbolism was then escaped, and the infant genius of true art attained the earliest movements of creative power. This is shown in the Madonna of Duccio, at Siena, dated A.D., 1220, and which is the oldest existing picture, or movable work, by an Italian artist. Next in date, and superior as art, is the Madonna by Cimabue, in the Novella at Florence. But even this seems rather a petrified type of womanhood, and could hardly be regarded as the flaming morning-star of a day about to spread from the bay of Naples to the borders of the Rhine, bright with the splendors of Giotto, Perugino, Raphael, Fra Beato, Leonardo da Vinci, and the sweet masters of the German school. It is not our purpose to note particularly the character and career of individual painters, but to remind our readers of the great and wonderful law of progress, in this as in every other respect. For example, while the two leading universities of Bologna and Paris arose to feed the lamp of science, art, following the general movement, and in the same direction, elevated itself to greater dignity of development and conception. Poesy lisped with the Troubadours, but they were sent to prepare the way for the manly utterance of the great Allighieri; and painting, associating itself with the bards, did not give Giotto to the world till Dantè was prepared to sing the three kingdoms of the second life. From the first etchings on the walls of catacombs, and the primitive symbols of faith depicted on martyr-urns, actual advancement had not ceased: but a still more auspicious hour now dawned when forms of beauty appeared which rivaled the productions of Greece and Rome, excelling the ancients by the sublimity of those holy sentiments transfused from heaven into the heart and intellect of its cultivators. Giovanni, of the noble family of Cimabue, was born in the year 1240, and on account of the great improvement which he wrought in his art, is looked upon, perhaps too exclusively, as the founder of modern painting. He was the disciple of a Greek mosaic painter at Florence, and worthily reproduced the excellence he was born to perpetuate.