Chap. XIII. FRA BARTOLOMMEO DELLA PORTA. 437 The subject of the Last Judgment is not the oldest that was accepted by Christian painters; but we have seen it pass through the hands of the Byzantines of S. Angelo in Formis at Capua, of the Siennese at the Campo Santo of Pisa; Giotto, Orcagna, and Angelico. Della Porta renovated the old theme by a scientific distribution which owes much of its final development to da Vinci, and is called modern art since it was raised to sublimity in the Parnassus of Raphael. The space may be dis sected into blocks of various shapes, ovals, triangles, po lygons, and arcs. . The result of their combination is an unity without interruption of lines, the principal element being the Greek cross. Above sits Christ in power and majesty, with charming cherubs about his glory, one peeping from behind his drapery; beneath him, the se raph with the symbols of the Passion and Redemption, and on the foreground S. Michael, the executor of doom, dividing the wicked from the blest. As a make-weight to these, the apostles are seated on clouds in a fine per spective row at each side of the Messiah. The system of poise and counterpoise is carried out in the minutest particular; and with such success that the science in the conjunction of the parts is hidden by the harmony of the whole. A new perfection is given to form, a greater free dom and nobleness to action, a more striking indivi duality to faces nearer than of old to the standard of masculine beauty, a more select detail to extremities. Passion is rendered with simplicity and measure, eleva tion, in the mien and regular face of the Redeemer, whose gentleness reminds one of Da Vinci; in the air and con verse of the apostles, in the gestures of the elect and of the condemned. In the boy-angels the innocence of child hood accompanies their flight and gambols, whilst those who sound the trumpets of the Judgment, have a spright liness almost carried to excess when one considers the solemnity of their office. A broad cast of drapery cor rectly defining and seeking the shape, and cleverly folded about the feet, is also a distinguishing feature. The