e wish that a distinguished portrait-painter should be sent
him from Venice, it was Gentile Bellini who was nominated. All the same,
Gentile was a portrait-painter, and Bastiani was not; and it is fairly
evident that the latter was at least in the front rank. One of his
best-known pictures the _Vergine dai begli occhi_ in the Ducal Palace at
Venice used to be attributed to Giovanni Bellini; but though he appears
to have drawn inspiration for his larger and more important compositions
from Jacobo Bellini, his style was chiefly developed through that of
Giambono. His most important work is now in the Academy at Vienna--an
altar-piece painted for the Church of Corpus Domini, Venice, _S.
Veneranda Enthroned_. In the Imperial Gallery at Vienna are a _Last
Communion_ and _Funeral of S. Girolamo_. In the Academy at Venice are
_S. Anthony of Padua_, seated between the branches of a walnut-tree,
with Cardinal Bonaventura and Brother Leo on either side, a large
picture of a _Miracle of the Holy Cross_, and a remarkable rendering of
_The Madonna Kneeling_, the child being laid under an elaborate canopy.
An _Entombment_ in the Church of S. Antonino at Venice is reminiscent of
Giovanni Bellini at his best.

In 1508, the name of VITTORE CARPACCIO occurs with that of Bastiani in
connection with the frescoes of Giorgione upon the facade of the Fondaco
de Tedeschi, about which there was a dispute. To Carpaccio we are
indebted for the most vivid realization of the contemporary life of
Venice; for although his subjects were nominally taken from sacred
history or legend, they are treated in a thoroughly secular fashion,
giving the clearest idea of the buildings, people, and costume of the
Venice of his time, with the greatest variety and richest development.
His object is not only to represent single events, but a complete scene,
and while we observe this characteristic in one or two pictures by the
Bellini, Carpaccio not only shows it much oftener, but carries it to a
much fuller development--possibly influenced by the Netherlandish
masters.

Many of his works are in the Academy at Venice; eight large pictures,
painted between 1490 and 1495, represent the history of S. Ursula and
the eleven thousand virgins. Such a wealth of charming material might
have embarrassed a less capable painter, but "the monotonous incident
which forms the groundwork of many of them," as Kugler coldly puts it,
"is throughout varied and elevated by a free style