in tempera in the life of Antonello da Messina. It is enough to note for the present that the efforts of the Florentines of the fifteenth century to substitute oil for other mediums were tentative and in a great measure unsuccessful; that a long time elapsed before tempera was abandoned altogether and that many pictures were ex ecuted partly in the old method and partly with oils. The perfected system of the Van Eycks was not dis covered in Italy, but introduced from the Netherlands, and came but slowly into common use. Though Andrea’s works in the choir of S. Maria Nuova have disappeared, a fresco of the crucifixion, with attendant figures, in the neighbouring Loggia of the Hospital of the Oblate, may be assigned to him, 1 the figure of Christ being similar in character to those in the monastery of the Angeli and recalling those of the Peselli, but creating a better impression on the beholder, because the style is less coarse, the hands and feet less common. On the other hand, Castagno’s remaining frescos in S. Croce, of the Baptist and S. Francis together in a niche, display in full his power of realizing in the minutest manner the wiry and muscular nude of a fasting solitary. His S. John is aged and more like S. Jerom than the Baptist. The face is that of a peasant with straggling hair looking up to heaven and beating his breast. The nude is drawn with a melancholy truth, and the figure rivals that of the Magdalen by Dona tello, in its appearance of privation. One may observe the sinewy forms mapped out in the manner after wards peculiar to Mantegna; the bones, muscles, veins and skin defined with astonishing precision. As usual, the laws of place are judiciously applied; but the drap eries and colour have defects similar to those of previous examples, which it is therefore needless to repeat. 2 1 The building is annexed to S. Maria Nuova. The Virgin and Evangelist are at each side, the Magdalen at the foot of the cross. In the foreground at each side kneel two canonized Benedictines. 2 One can still see that the figures were transferred from a
