Chap. IX. EARLY VERONESE ART 231 CHAPTER IX. PAINTERS OF VERONA, PADUA, MILAN, AND VENICE. North Italy, perhaps under the influence of Venetian examples, continued to cultivate the artistic forms and methods of past ages long after the degenerate Italo- Byzantine style had been discarded or improved by the schools of Florence and Sienna. The powerful families of the Carrara and Scaligeri enticed Giotto to their courts, where the great Florentine might have roused the emul ation of local painters and spread the seed of Tuscan art. Yet throughout the Lombardo-Venetian territory we seek in vain for traces of the Giottesque manner; and a solitary example at Colalto only reveals the mixture of the old Venetian with the style of the later Gaddi. Giotto resided long at Padua, without leaving behind him a single artist to continue his manner. We may admit that he visited Verona, and gave Alboin or Can Grande occasion to admire the greatness of his genius; but his example produced no imitator; and the capital of the Scaligeri still betrayed a painful barrenness after the lapse of half the fourteenth century. Verona had followed the same decline as the cities of central and South Italy. The curious traveller may note in S. Nazaro e Celso a baptism of the Saviour produced in the earlier ages of Christian art, in the crypt of San Fermo, near the high altar, a syren, painted after the fashion of the primitive times, fragments of figures dating as far back as the twelfth century, and a deposition from the cross on a pilaster in which the Redeemer’s feet are
