Chap. XVII. ANDREA DEL SARTO. 569 tua a little later with Giulio Romano; and the latter vaunted to him the beauty of the Raphael, the only one there. Vasari, who about this period had been introduced to Del Sarto, and had friendly relations with Ottaviano, was aware of the deception which had been practised, and said to Giulio: “It is very fine, but not Raphael.” “How not”, sharply replied the other, “do I not know it, who recognize the strokes of my own work.” “You have forgotten”, urged Vasari, “this is by Andrea del Sarto, as you can see from a sign that I shall show you.” Upon this Giulio looked at a mark to which Va sari pointed, 1 which, had it been kept, would have pre vented a long and wearisome dispute. The genuineness of the Leo at the Pitti has been questioned in favour of that in the Museum at Naples; though on the face of it the latter bears all the evidence of being taken from the former. No doubt, had Raphael been asked for a re plica, he might have reproduced his own design, and yet have betrayed to us which of the two was the repetition. But in the Naples “ Leo ” the question presents itself more boldly. We miss in it the perfect keeping, ease, gran deur, modelling, and relief of form; the peculiar flavour of art which distinguish Sanzio from Del Sarto. The Mantuan double, of less simplicity in the outline than Raphael’s, has a contour with the twang of Andrea’s ac cent in it; chiaroscuro of comparatively little massiveness, shadows of a less mysterious depth, because imperfectly modelled. The difference lies in the variety of the principles upon which the two painters laboured. The peculiarity of their schooling produces distinct modes of handling. Andrea did not place tones over each other and fuse them together by glaze and half glaze, accord ing to the process which Raphael had learnt from Leo nardo and Perugino. His is a more immediate and rapid system, which has frequently the disadvantage of giving an air of emptiness to his works in oil. That system ' Vas. VIII. 282.
