IONE. He was born about
1329, and died about 1368. It has long been the custom to attribute to
Orcagna some of the most important frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa;
but it is so doubtful whether he worked there that I shall not speak of
them. His father was a goldsmith, and Orcagna first studied his father's
craft; he was also an architect, sculptor, mosaist, and poet, as well as a
painter. He made an advance in color and in the painting of atmosphere
that gives him high rank as a painter; as a sculptor, his tabernacle in
the Church of Or San Michele speaks his praise. Mr. C. C. Perkins thus
describes it: "Built of white marble in the Gothic style, enriched with
every kind of ornament, and storied with bas-reliefs illustrative of the
Madonna's history from her birth to her death, it rises in stately beauty
toward the roof of the church, and, whether considered from an
architectural, sculptural, or symbolic point of view, must excite the
warmest admiration in all who can appreciate the perfect unity of
conception through which its bas-reliefs, statuettes, busts, intaglios,
mosaics, and incrustations of _pietre dure_, gilded glass, and enamels are
welded into a unique whole."

But perhaps it is as an architect that Orcagna is most interesting to us,
for he it was who made the designs for the Loggia de Lanzi in Florence.
This was built as a place for public assembly, and the discussion of the
topics of the day in rainy weather; it received its name on account of
its nearness to the German guard-house which was called that of the
Landsknechts (in German), or Lanzi, as it was given in Italian. Orcagna
probably died before the Loggia was completed, and his brother Bernardo
succeeded him as architect of the commune. This Loggia is one of the most
interesting places in Florence, fully in sight of the Palazzo Signoria,
near the gallery of the Uffizi, and itself the storehouse of precious
works of sculpture.

There were also in these early days of the fourteenth century schools of
art at Bologna and Modena; but we know so little of them in detail that I
shall not attempt to give any account of them here, but will pass to the
early artists who may be said to belong to the true Renaissance in Italy.

CHAPTER III.

PAINTING IN ITALY, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE RENAISSANCE
TO THE PRESENT CENTURY.

The reawakening of Art in Italy which followed the darkness of the Middle
Ages, dates from about the beginning of the fiftee