Ursula" series, Venice, 1490) makes it
improbable that at that time he had reached so mature an age as
thirty-five; and the date of his birth is more probably to be guessed
from his being about twenty-five in 1490. What is certain is that he was
a pupil (not, as sometimes thought, the master) of Lazzaro Bastiani,
who, like the Bellini and Vivarini, was the head of a large _atelier_ in
Venice, and whose own work is seen in such pictures as the "S.
Veneranda" at Vienna, and the "Doge Mocenigo kneeling before the Virgin"
and "Madonna and Child" (formerly attributed to Carpaccio) in the
National Gallery, London. In later years Carpaccio appears to have been
influenced by Cima da Conegliano (e.g. in the "Death of the Virgin,"
1508, at Ferrara). Apart from the "St Ursula" series, his scattered
series of the "Life of the Virgin" and "Life of St Stephen," and a "Dead
Christ" at Berlin, may be specially mentioned.

For an authoritative and detailed account, see the _Life and Works of
Vittorio Carpaccio_, by Pompeo Molmenti and Gustav Ludwig, Eng. trans,
by R.H. Cust (1907); and the criticism by Roger Fry, "A Genre Painter
and his Critics," in the _Quarterly Review_ (London, April 1908).

CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS[1] (Lat. _Monies Sarmatici_; Med. Lat. _Montes
Nivium_), the eastern wing of the great central mountain system of
Europe. With the exception of the extreme southern and south-eastern
ramifications, which belong to Rumania, the Carpathians lie entirely
within Austrian and Hungarian territory. They begin on the Danube near
Pressburg, surround Hungary and Transylvania in a large semicircle, the
concavity of which is towards the south-west, and end on the Danube near
Orsova. The total length of the Carpathians is over 800 m., and their
width varies between 7 and 230 m., the greatest width of the Carpathians
corresponding with its highest altitude. Thus the system attains its
greatest breadth in the Transylvanian plateau, and in the meridian of
the Tatra group. It covers an area of 72,600 sq. m., and after the Alps
is the most extensive mountain system of Europe. The Carpathians do not
form an uninterrupted chain of mountains, but consist of several
orographically and geologically distinctive groups; in fact they present
as great a structural variety as the Alps; but as regards magnificence
of scenery they cannot compare with the Alps. The Carpathians, which
only in a few places attain an altitude of over 8000 ft.,