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GIUSEPPE

examples of Elysian happiness in a race in the state of innocence, Giulio's decorations resemble saturnalia of lubricity itself. The vulgarity of the drawing leaves no illusion as to the nature of its intention; nothing remains of the ancient myth, thus stripped of all its ideal signification, but what serves to excite the senses. Thus art, losing all moral import, sinks inevitably to the level of a game of conventional rules, and the cloak of fiction serves only to disguise the grossness of the instincts, which have ousted every laudable ideal. Such was the result of "art for art's sake" in his case, and the danger of such principles was aggra- vated by the superstitious reverence for the antique in the sixteenth centur)-. The word antique was held to purify and sanctify everything: all things were law- ful in the name of erudition, the antique became a fetish. In the Hall of Troy (1534-1.5:58) in the Palazzo di Corte, and in his " Triumph of Titus and Vespasian " in the Louvre, Giulio, following in the footsteps of Mantcgna, had given e\i- dcnce that he too was among the learned, the connoisseurs, the men of disinterested cul- ture, and no doubt con- cluded that he was thereby entitled to ilispense with the claims of moraUty in the rest of his works. It was not long until the same specious reasoning became the fash- ion in Europe. Primatice introduced it to the Court of Fontainebleau ; and Ru- bens, who spent eight years (1600-1608) at the Court of Mantua, brought it back with him to Flanders. Giulio is the originator of those lascivious pictures, dating from 1630 to 1638, which are in the Prado and Torre de la Pareja galleries at Madrid. Mantua, Giulio's towTi, rather than Rome was the teacher of the seventeenth century. The consequences of these lirinciples were disastrous. The anti(iue, indeed, could only be the rcUgion of the few, but, by constituting fable the sole vehicle of the beautiful, Giulio, vulgarian though he was, fell into the error of "aristocratiz- ing" art, and thus of severing its indispensable bond with the real. Henceforth its public became fewer; art, becoming the property of an intellectual class, was exposed to all the risks inherent in caste and party spirit. It was now a priWleged possession, a code- language for use only among the initiated. Emanci- pated from morality (thanks to the sophism of the antique), deprived of the necessan,- support of reality, and immune from the common-sense verdict of the general public, it gave utterance only to aimless, use- less, soulless, Ufeless abstractions. As an example may be cited the most famous of Giulio's works, the "Hall of the Giants" (1532-1.534) in the Palace of the Ta- jetto. It is difficult to say whether the artist was here the dupe of his imagination, or whether the work was the result of a jocose wager, for it is certainly a freak, a shock like those that used to startle the yokels in the Gardens of CasteUo and of PratoUno. I?ut the effect here is brought about by such palpable illusion, the imposture is so enormous, it demands so many concessions from the spe»tator. it presupposes such a lack of all critical power on his part, that it is hard to understand such a pleasantni', though for Giulio's sake one would gladly wish it such. The

Giulio By himseU', Uffi

effort is so out of proportion to the result that one can- not repress a feeling of pity. Such a lack of dignity comes as a shock. There is, of course, in the Italian genius a substratum of scepticism, of irony, of parodj', which outsiders can never quite reahze. But was it worth while to heap Pelion on Ossa, to shake the whole world, to create such a cataclysm of colour, merely to raise a smile? Or can it be that the logical outcome of the doctrine of "art for art's sake" is nothing more or less than the bizarre and the burlesque?

Distinguished by such characteristics and marked by such defects, Giulio Romano occupies nevertheless an important place in the history of art. More than any other, he aided in propagating the pseudo-classi- cal, half-pagan style of art so fashionable during the seventeenth century, and it is mainly through his influence that after the year 1600 we find so few re- ligious painters in Europe. It was reserved to a Dutchman — Rembrandt. — to reconcile artand moral- ity once more. By his influ- ence as a pupil of Raphael, Giulio contributed to spread the evil germs of Italian Art — carelessness of finish, bravura, lack of sincerity, lack of truth, mannerism, love of the grotesque. He painted many altar-pieces; the best is the "Stoning of St. Stephen" in S. Stefano at Genoa, executed before leaving Rome, when the mantle of Raphael was stiU on him. His Madonnas, such as the "Madonna della Gatta" (Naples), the "Ma- donna della Catina" (Dres- den), are mere genre pictures without feeling or religious depth, having the sort of ab- stract beauty we expect in bas-reliefs. The "Nati\ity" of the Louvre is an attempt to reproduce the chiaro- oscuro of Corregio.

Vasaui, Vife de* pix'i eccetlenli pittori, ed. MiLANEsi {Florence, 187S); D'Arco, htoria della Vila e delle opere di Giulio Romano (1838; 2nd ed. with appendi.x, 1842); Arti ed arlcjici di Mantova (Mantua, 1857); Woermann, Geschichle der Malerei, II (Leip- zig, 18S2); Crowe and Cavai/- CASELLE. Hislon/ of Italian Painting; Buckiiardt. Der Cicerone, ed. Bode (Berlin. 1S79); Berenson, Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance (New York, 1903).

Louis Gillet.

Giuseppe Maria Tommasi, Blessed, cardinal, noted for his learning, humility, and zeal for reform ; b. at Licata, Sicily, of a princelv family. 12 September, 1649 ; d. in Rome, 1 January, 1713. Though destined by his father for the Spanish Court, he joined the Clerks Regular of the Theatine Order at Palermo, 24 March, 1665, renovmcing his primogeniture and the princedom in favour of his brother. He was profes.sed 25 March, 1666. He studied philosophy, first at Mes- sina, and later, owing to poor health, at Ferrara and Modena; and theology in Rome and Palermo. He was ordained priest on Christmas Day, 1673. To a wide knowledge of Greek, he united the study of Ethi- opic. Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaic and Hebrew — convert- ing his master, a Jewish rabbi, to Christianity. From the Psalters in these different languages, he collected the titles of the Psalms. He devoted himself to the studv of Scri]iture and the Fathers. Searching the chief libraries, archives, and monvuuents, he retraced the ancient ecclesiastical discipline and liturgy.

His valuable works {Codici Tommasiani), published

Gallery, Florenc