em, selected
the very simplest and least fantastic forms. The greatest masters of
the art--Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, Guido, Domenichino, Paul
Veronese, Rubens, Guercino, Agostino Caracci, and many hardly less
distinguished artists--either omitted to sign their pictures at all,
or signed their name at full length, sometimes with the addition of
their local surname, or employed the initial syllables or letters of
their name in the ordinary Roman form, without any attempt at grouping
them into a monogram. Even Salvator Rosa, with all the wildness and
extravagance of his manner, used an exceedingly simple combination of
the initials of his name. The monogram of the great Spanish painter,
Bartholomew Esteban [Stephen] Murillo, consists simply of the three
initial letters of the name, signed in the common Roman character, and
combined with perfect simplicity, except that there is a curious
inversion of their order. That of his countryman, Joseph
Ribera--better known as _Espagnoletto_--is merely the combination of
the same letters, written in a cursive hand; and his signature is even
occasionally found at full length, or very slightly abridged.

There is one curious exception to this general preference for
simplicity among the masters of the first class--that of the
celebrated Anthony Allegri, more commonly known under his surname,
Correggio. This eminent painter did not think a pun beneath the
dignity of his art, and, accordingly, the device by which he
distinguishes his pictures consists of a punning symbol, representing
his name. We need hardly explain to our readers that _Correggio_ may
be read _Cor_ (_cuore_) _Reggio_ (_Royal Heart_.) The painter has
expressed this pun in two different ways: by the figure of a heart,
with the word _Reggio_ inscribed upon it in Roman letters; and again
by the still more punning emblem of a heart surmounted by a crown, or,
it should rather be said, of a crowned, and therefore royal, heart. In
confirmation, however, of the general tendency to simplicity which we
have observed as prevailing among his great contemporaries, we should
add that some of Correggio's pictures are signed with the initial
syllables of his name, printed in the ordinary Roman character.

It is perhaps more remarkable, that even among the humorists the same
simplicity should have prevailed. Our own Hogarth, both the Tenierses,
Hans Holbein, Ostade, even Callot himself, with all his extravagant
and capricious fan