ous, spirited, gracious, and beautiful in the expressions,
the manner not crude, and the nudes so tinted with black that they may
have relief, melting gradually into the distance according as may be
required; to say nothing of the perspective-views, landscapes, and other
parts that good pictures demand, nor that in making use of the works of
others a man should proceed in such a manner that this may not be too
easily recognized. Battista thus became aware too late that he had
wasted time beyond all reason over the minutiae of muscles and over
drawing with too great diligence, while paying no attention to the other
fields of art.

[Illustration: TINTORETTO: BACCHUS AND ARIADNE

(_Venice: Doge's Palace, Salon Anticollegio. Canvas_)]

Having finished that work, which brought him little praise, Battista
transferred himself by means of Bartolommeo Genga to the service of the
Duke of Urbino, to paint a very large vaulting in the church and chapel
attached to the Palace of Urbino. Having arrived there, he set himself
straightway to make the designs according as the invention presented
itself in the work, without giving it any further thought and without
making any compartments. And so in imitation of the Judgment of
Buonarroti, he depicted in a Heaven the Glory of the Saints, who are
dispersed over that vaulting on certain clouds, with all the choirs of
the Angels about a Madonna, who, having ascended into Heaven, is
received by Christ, who is in the act of crowning her, while in various
separate groups stand the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Sibyls, the
Apostles, the Martyrs, the Confessors, and the Virgins; which figures,
in their different attitudes, reveal their rejoicing at the advent of
that Glorious Virgin. This invention would certainly have given Battista
a great opportunity to prove himself an able master, if he had chosen a
better way, not only making himself well-practised in fresco-colours,
but also proceeding with better order and judgment than he displayed in
all his labour. But he used in this work the same methods as in all his
others, for he made always the same figures, the same countenances, the
same members, and the same draperies; besides which, the colouring was
without any charm, and everything laboured and executed with difficulty.
When all was finished, therefore, it gave little satisfaction to Duke
Guidobaldo, Genga, and all the others who were expecting great things
from that master, equal to the