the same legend, and
both originally hung in the Scuola di S. Marco.

[Illustration: _Anderson photo. Padua Gallery_

FRONTS OF TWO CASSONES, WITH MYTHOLOGICAL SCENES]

Finally, two _cassone_ panels in the gallery at Padua have been
acclaimed by Signor Venturi as the master's own,[72] and with that view
I am entirely agreed. The stories represented are not easily
determinable (as is so often the case with Giorgione), but probably
refer to the legends of Adonis.[73] The splendour of colour, the lurid
light, the richness of effect, are in the highest degree impressive.
What artist but Giorgione would have so revelled in the glories of the
evening sunset, the orange horizon, the distant blue hills? The same
gallery affords several instances of similar decorative pieces by
other Venetian artists which serve admirably to show the great gulf
fixed in quality between Giorgione's work and that of the Schiavones,
the Capriolis, and others who imitated him.[74]

NOTES:

[11] Oxford Lecture, reported in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, Nov. 10, 1884.

[12] See _postea_, p. 63.

[13] Bellini adopted it later in his S. Giov. Crisostomo altar-piece of
1513.

[14] All the more surprising is it that it receives no mention from
Vasari, who merely states that the master worked at Castelfranco.

[15] I unhesitatingly adopt the titles recently given to these pictures
by Herr Franz Wickhoff (_Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen_,
Heft. i. 1895), who has at last succeeded in satisfactorily explaining
what has puzzled all the writers since the days of the Anonimo.

[16] Statius: _Theb_. iv. 730 _ff_. See p. 135.

[17] _Aen._ viii. 306-348.

[18] Fry: _Giovanni Bellini_, p. 39.

[19] ii. 214.

[20] Ridolfi mentions the following as having been painted by
Giorgione:--"The Age of Gold," "Deucalion and Pyrrha," "Jove hurling
Thunderbolts at the Giants," "The Python," "Apollo and Daphne," "Io
changed into a Cow," "Phaeton, Diana, and Calisto," "Mercury stealing
Apollo's Arms," "Jupiter and Pasiphae," "Cadmus sowing the Dragon's
Teeth," "Dejanira raped by Nessus," and various episodes in the life of
Adonis.

[21] In the Venice Academy.

[22] _Archivio, Anno VI_., where reproductions of the two are given side
by side, _fasc_. vi. p. 412.

[23] The Berlin example (by the Pseudo-Basaiti) is reproduced in the
Illustrated Catalogue of the recent exhibition of Renaissance Art at
Berlin; the Rovigo version (under Leonardo's name!) is