se district--at his birthplace
Varallo, at Saronno, Vercelli, and Milan. It is to be regretted that a
painter of such singular ability, almost unrivalled at moments in the
expression of intense feeling and the representation of energetic
movement, should have lacked a simpler training, or have been unable to
adopt a manner more uniform. There is a strength of wing in his
imaginative flight, a swiftness and impetuosity in his execution, and a
dramatic force in his conception, that almost justify Lomazzo's choice of
the eagle for his emblem. Yet he was unable to collect his powers, or to
rule them. The distractions of an age that had produced its masterpieces,
were too strong for him; and what he failed to find was balance. His
picture of the "Martyrdom of S. Catherine," where reminiscences of Raphael
and Lionardo mingle with the uncouth motives of an earlier style in a
medley without unity of composition or harmony of colouring, might be
chosen as a typical instance of great resources misapplied.[395]

The most pleasing of Ferrari's paintings are choirs of angels, sorrowing
or rejoicing, some of them exquisitely and originally beautiful, all
animated with unusual life, and poised upon wings powerful enough to bear
them--veritable "birds of God."[396] His dramatic scenes from sacred
history, rich in novel motives and exuberantly full of invention, crowd
the churches of Vercelli; while a whole epic of the Passion is painted in
fresco above the altar of S. Maria delle Grazie at Varallo, covering the
wall from basement to ceiling. The prodigality of power displayed by
Ferrari makes up for much of crudity in style and confusion in aim; nor
can we refuse the tribute of warmest admiration to a master, who, when the
schools of Rome and Florence were sinking into emptiness and bombast,
preserved the fire of feeling for serious themes. What was deadly in the
neo-paganism of the Renaissance--its frivolity and worldliness, corroding
the very sources of belief in men who made of art a decoration for their
sensuous existence--had not penetrated to those Lombard valleys where
Ferrari and Luini worked. There the devotion of the Sacri Monti still
maintained an intelligence between the people and the artist, far more
fruitful of results to painting than the patronage of splendour-loving
cardinals and nobles.[397]

Passing from Lionardo to Raphael, we find exactly the reverse of what has
hitherto been noticed. Raphael worked out the mine o