Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/380

 350 Painting introduction of oil colours, the scientific study of perspective, form, and colour, and the constant demand for frescoes on an extensive scale led to a progressive movement in Italy which culminated in the sixteenth century; and during this development schools arose on every side, characterised by excellence in one or another element of art. Until about 1450 we find Florence still taking the lead ; but from that date the Neapolitan, Umbrian, Bolognese, Venetian, and Paduan Schools rose into almost equal importance. (a) The Florentine School. The artist who contributed most to the pre-eminence of Florence in the early part of the fifteenth century was, without doubt, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (see p. 244), in whose school the leading painters of the day were formed. He perfected the imitation of nature which Giotto had introduced, applying the sciences of anatomy, mathematics, and geometry to the art of design. Of his pupils we can only name the principal : Paolo Uccelli (1397 — 1475), who directed his attention almost exclu- sively to the study of perspective, the great value of which he illustrated in his frescoes in the monastery of S. Maria Novella at Florence — of which the Drunkenness of Noah is especially remarkable — and in several easel pictures, one of which, the Battle of S. Egidio, is in the National Gallery; two others are in the UfTizi and the Louvre. Piero de' Franceschi, commonly called Piero dellaJjcaEr cesca (ab. 1415 — 1492), did much to systematise the study of perspective ; Masolino da Panicale (1382 — 1447), who excelled in colouring, but who rather sacrificed compo- sition to detail of form, executed several fine works in the