peted and
carried off the prize. This was the first of the series of the great
works for Bergamo, which enrich the little city, where at this period
he can best be studied. The great altarpiece (now removed to San
Bartolommeo) is a most interesting human document, a revelation of the
painter's personality. He does not break away from hieratic conventions,
like the rival school; his Madonna is still placed in the apse of the
church with saints grouped round her, a form from which the Vivarini
never departed, but the whole is full of intense movement, of a lyric
grace and ecstasy, a desire to express fervent and rapturous devotion.
The architectural background is not in happy proportion in relation to
the figures, but the effect of vista and space is more remarkable than
in any North Italian master. The vivid treatment of light and shade, and
the gaiety and delicacy of the flying angels, who hold the canopy, and
of the putti, who spread the carpet below, the shapes of throne and
canopy and the decorations have led to the idea that Lotto drew his
inspiration from Correggio, whom he certainly resembles in some ways;
but at this time Correggio was only twenty, and had not given any
examples of the style we are accustomed to call Correggiesque. We must
look back to a common origin for those decorative details, which are so
conspicuous in Crivelli and Bartolommeo Vivarini, which came to Lotto
through the Vivarini and to Correggio through Ferrarese painters, and
of which the fountain-head for both was the school of Squarcione. For
the much more striking resemblances of composition and spirit, the
explanation seems to be that Lotto on one side of his nature was akin
to Correggio; he had the same lyrical feeling, the same inclination to
exuberance and buoyancy. To both, painting was a vehicle for the
expression of feeling, but Lotto had also common sense and a goodly
share of that humour that is allied to pathos.

Till the year 1526 Lotto was much in Bergamo, where the first altarpiece
gained him orders for others. The reputation of a member of the school
of Venice was a sure passport to employment. We trace Alvise's tradition
very plainly in the altarpiece in San Bernardino, where the gesture of
the Madonna's hand as she expounds to the listening saints recalls
Alvise's of 1480. The little gathered roses, which Lotto makes use
of to the end of his life, lie scattered on the step; angels, daringly
foreshortened, sweep aside the c