m-eaten original
panel to canvas, in 1750, and by a later restoration in 1799. We are
soon arrested by some masterpieces of the Milanese school, and first
by the Da Vincis: 1599 is the famous Virgin of the Rocks, whose
genuineness is warmly championed by French critics as against the
similar picture in the National Gallery stoutly defended as the
original by English authorities. Professor Legros with impartial
judgment assures us that both are copies of a lost original; 1597, a
doubtful attribution, is a rather effeminate John the Baptist, by some
critics believed to be a second Gioconda portrait; 1600, the supposed
portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, mistress of Ludovico il Moro, is also
ascribed by the official catalogue to Da Vinci. It would, however, be
hard to persuade us that Leonardo had any hand in this portrait,
excellent though it be, which seems rather by Beltraffio, Solario, or
another of the Milanese masters; 1602, Bacchus, is another doubtful
Leonardo. 1488, L. of 1597, is an admirable work by Sacchi: Four
Doctors of the Church with symbols of the Evangelists. By Solario, a
younger contemporary of Da Vinci, are 1532, a Crucifixion; 1530, a
masterpiece, the much admired Virgin of the Green Cushion; and 1533,
Head of the Baptist.

The sweet and tender Luini is seen almost at his best in 1355, Salome
with the Baptist's head: other works by him are 1362, Silence, and
1353, a Holy Family. At the end of this section hangs 1169,
Beltraffio's, Virgin of the Casio Family, esteemed by Vasari the
painter's best production. We proceed to Section B, same wall, where
hang two grand Mantegnas, painted for Isabella d'Este's "Grotta,"
towards the end of the artist's career. 1375, Parnassus, executed in
1497, represents the Triumph of Venus over Mars, celebrated by Apollo
and the Muses--a delightful group of partially draped female figures
dancing to Apollo's lyre; 1376, Triumph of Virtue (_virtu_, mental and
moral excellence) over the Vices of Sensuality and Sloth, a less
successful composition, executed in 1502. Another masterpiece is 1374,
Our Lady of Victory, a noble and virile work, painted in 1496 to
commemorate the defeat of the French at Taro in 1495 by Isabella's
consort, Francesco Gonzaga, the donor, who is seen kneeling in full
armour; 1373, is an earlier work, the central and most important of
the three sections of the predella of the Triptych at S. Zeno in
Verona--a powerful, reverent, though somewhat hard, concept