eon e ty Selana.+

It was thus that the almost childlike spirit of the Milanese painters
felt the antique; how differently from their Roman brethren! It was thus
that they interpreted the lines of their own poets:

E i tuoi capei piu volte ho somigliati
Di Cerere a le paglie secche o bionde
Dintorno crespi al tuo capo legati.[F]

Yet the painter of this hall--whether we are to call him Lanini or
another--was not a composer. Where he has not robbed the motives and the
distribution of the figures from Raphael, he has nothing left but grace
of detail. The intellectual feebleness of his style may be seen in many
figures of women playing upon instruments of music, ranged around the
walls. One girl at the organ is graceful; another with a tambourine has
a sort of Bassarid beauty. But the group of Apollo, Pegasus, and a Muse
upon Parnassus is a failure in its meaningless frigidity, while few of
these subordinate compositions show power of conception or vigor of
design.

Lanini, like Sodoma, was a native of Vercelli; and though he was
Ferrari's pupil, there is more in him of Luini or of Sodoma than of his
master. He does not rise at any point to the height of these three great
masters, but he shares some of Luini's and Sodoma's fine qualities,
without having any of Ferrari's force. A visit to the mangled remnants
of his frescos in S. Caterina will repay the student of art. This was
once, apparently, a double church with the hall and chapel of a
_confraternita_ appended to it. One portion of the building was painted
with the history of the saint; and very lovely must this work have been,
to judge by the fragments which have recently been rescued from
whitewash, damp, and ruthless mutilation. What wonderful Lombard faces,
half obliterated on the broken wall and mouldering plaster, smile upon
us like drowned memories swimming up from the depths of oblivion!
Wherever three or four are grouped together, we find an exquisite little
picture--an old woman and two young women in a doorway, for example,
telling no story, but touching us with simple harmony of form. Nothing
further is needed to render their grace intelligible. Indeed, knowing
the faults of the school, we may seek some consolation by telling
ourselves that these incomplete fragments yield Lanini's best. In the
coved compartments of the roof, above the windows, ran a row of dancing
boys; and these are still most beautifully modelled, though the pallor
of