, account for the fact that but two Italian women of
this period became so famous as to merit notice--Caterina Vigri and
Onorata Rodiana, whose stories are given in the biographical part of this
book.

* * * * *

In Flanders, late in the fourteenth and early in the fifteenth centuries,
women were engaged in the study and practice of art. In Bruges, when the
Van Eycks were inventing new methods in the preparation of colors, and
painting their wonderful pictures, beside them, and scarcely inferior to
them, was their sister, Margaretha, who sacrificed much of her artistic
fame by painting portions of her brothers' pictures, unless the fact that
they thought her worthy of thus assisting them establishes her reputation
beyond question.

In the fifteenth century we have reason to believe that many women
practised art in various departments, but so scanty and imperfect are the
records of individual artists that little more than their names are
known, and we have no absolute knowledge of the value of their works, or
where, if still existing, they are to be seen.

The art of the Renaissance reached its greatest excellence during the
last three decades of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth
century. This was a glorious period in the History of Art. The barbarism
of the Middle Ages was essentially a thing of the past, but much barbaric
splendor in the celebration of ceremonies and festivals still remained to
satisfy the artistic sense, while every-day costumes and customs lent a
picturesqueness to ordinary life. So much of the pagan spirit as endured
was modified by the spirit of the Renaissance. The result was a new order
of things especially favorable to painting.

An artist now felt himself as free to illustrate the pagan myths as to
represent the events in the lives of the Saviour, the Virgin and the
saints, and the actors in the sacred subjects were represented with the
same beauty and grace of form as were given the heroes and heroines of
Hellenic legend. St. Sebastian was as beautiful as Apollo, and the
imagination and senses were moved alike by pictures of Danae and the
Magdalene--the two subjects being often the work of the same artist.

The human form was now esteemed as something more than the mere
habitation of a soul; it was beautiful in itself and capable of awakening
unnumbered emotions in the human heart. Nature, too, presented herself in
a new aspect and inspired