VI PREFACE. the sources from which documentary evidence has been derived. It is sufficient to say, as regards the first point, that the matter seemed almost naturally to arrange itself into the shape it has now assumed; —with respect to the second, that we have obtained assistance from many well-wishers, each of whom to thank in turn would exceed the space at our com mand, but to whom collectively we hereby offer our grateful acknowledgments. We have presumed to place before the reader an instalment of two volumes, comprising the History of Painting complete to the close of the fourteenth century, partially so to the end of the fifteenth, leaving the .sixteenth untouched. Our future plan involves the termination of the fifteenth century, with a narrative of the decline of the Siennese and the rise of the Perugian schools, and the develop ment of Venetian, Sicilian, and Neapolitan art. The lives of the Florentines of the next period will immediately follow, and be made to contrast with those of artists in other parts of Italy till the tide of the great Revival halts at the full. This result we hope to attain in two subsequent volumes. The plates which illustrate the pages now issued have partly appeared before in the work of Kugler; but their number has been swelled by the addition of others of great interest engraved especially for this occasion.