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BEL Course of Architecture," a work for which he had prepared, at the cost of ten years' labour, a multitude of designs, when he died suddenly at Paris. His passion for gambling latterly reduced him to extreme want.—J. S., G.  BELLIÉVRE,, chancellor of France, was born at Lyons in 1529; died 5th September, 1607. After studying the law at Toulouse and Padua, he was nominated counsellor to the senate of the parliament of Chambéry. He held a respectable rank as a diplomatist, and was twice sent by Charles IX. as ambassador to Switzerland. In 1586 he was sent by Henry III. as ambassador to Elizabeth, queen of England, to demand the liberation of the unfortunate Queen Mary. Belliévre having been suspected of unfaithfulness was sent into exile; but under Henry IV. was restored to court favour. In 1599 Henry bestowed on him the office of chancellor, a place which he occupied until 1604. He was a warm patron of literature, and has left several pieces on the public affairs of that period.—The brother of Belliévre,, lord of Hautefort, was first president of the parliament of Grenoble. The two sons of Pomponne Belliévre, and , were archbishops of Lyons. The eldest, Albert, abbé of Jouay, died in 1621. He was nominated archbishop by Henry IV. in 1599; but having about five years afterwards fallen into a state of mental imbecility, he resigned his charge in favour of his brother Claude.—, the third brother, was president of the parliament of Paris. He was born in 1583, and died at Paris, 8th July, 1650. In 1612 he was appointed procureur-general, and in 1614 president a mortier. This last office he resigned in 1642 in favour of his son.—G. M.  BELLINI,, the chief founder of the Venetian school of painting, was born at Venice, 1422 (Giotto being dead nearly a century), and died in 1512. He was the son of, a well-known painter of humble origin, who studied under Gentile of Fabbriano, a town of central Italy. He was the brother of, an historical painter, who was probably named by his father after his master, the artist of Fabbriano. The Giotto influence seems to have reached Venice through Verona and Padua. Paolo, Lorenzo, Andrea de Murano, and the Vivarini were predecessors of the Bellinis. The early painters used distemper, mixing their colours not with oil, but size, or white of eggs. Their works were timid, hard, small and Byzantine, wanting in softness, smoothness, and brilliancy. At this crisis of art, John van Eyck discovered, what all the world was longing for, the use of oil as a new vehicle for colour. Antonelli of Messina, by a course of flattering and wooing, obtained the great secret from the patient Fleming, and hastened with it to enlighten his Italy. He twice visited Venice, the first time communicating his secret only to Domenico, who was afterwards murdered by a friend to whom he had confided it: but in his second visit he received a salary as a public professor of painting, and divulged his method to many artists. This was about the year 1474. His fame drew many disciples to the blue lagunes, among others, Roger of Bruges, Theodore of Haarlem, and Quintinus Matsejs (Quintin Matses?). Perhaps on his first visit Antonelli was somewhat jealous of his spell, for the enthusiast John Bellini is said to have got access to his studio only under the disguise of a Venetian gentleman desirous of having his portrait taken, and to have there learned the new Flemish method that was to supersede the dull paleness of distemper, and this story, even if untrue (though we are reluctant to disbelieve tradition), would at least imply that a Venetian gentleman and an artist wore distinctive and unmistakeable dresses. Domenico and our John became rivals, nor did John rise very high till Domenico left Venice. It is a beautiful trait of the generous nature of old Jacopo, the father, that instead of growing envious of his sons, he used to exult that they surpassed him. He said it was like the Tuscans for son to beat father, and he hoped, in God's name, that Giovanni would outstrip him, and Gentile, the elder, outstrip both. Soon after this he left them to go and paint alone. The only extant picture of his is a portrait of Petrarch and Laura in the Manfrini gallery. John and Gentile were good sons, and we therefore may conclude that he was a good father. The siroccos and salt winds have eaten up his works, and he is now only known as the father of Titian's master. From 1464 to 1516, that is to say, from the early part of Edward IV.'s reign to deep into the reign of Henry VIII., this patriarch of art worked on at palace roofs, and chapel altars, at virgins, saints, Bacchantes, and gorgeous illustrations of Venetian history. His chief designs were enthronements of the virgin, with a surrounding of saints, martyrs, and rejoicing and musical angels. Zan and Zentile, as they were called in the original dialect of Venice, were affectionate brothers, of congenial dispositions, mutually encouraging and praising each other. This in John was modesty, but in Gentile very truth; the latter in vain attempting by diligence to compensate for the niggardness of fortune. While the two brothers were adorning the hall of the great council with paintings of the early victories of the republic over Frederic Barbarossa, a Jewish orator came from the Grand Turk Mahomet II., or Bajazet II, requesting the loan of Giovanni Bellini, some of whose works he had seen and admired. The Doge, not willing to trust John on so perilous a voyage, made a scape-goat of Gentile, and set him off to Stamboul in the galleys of Romania, representing the younger brother as too old and infirm for so long a voyage. Gentile, perhaps flattered into rashness, went, and astonished a nation whose creed forbids art, by painting portraits. The British museum still preserves a masterly pencil drawing, by the Venetian, of the sultan, and the sultana his mother. A picture he painted of John the Baptist's head in a charger, is said to have led to his return home. The sultan, a keen judge of such matters, grew critical, and declared that the painter had left the saint's neck too long, as on such painful occasions the muscles always contracted and drew back into the trunk. "See," said he, and with a sweep of his jewelled scimitar, he sliced off the head of an attendant; "Now!" The sultan was right, the artist owned his mistake. Gentile, after this proof positive, never rested till he had leave to embark; the sultan throwing round his neck a gold Turkish chain, weighing 250 scudi, and writing a letter so complimentary, that it led to the Ten fixing on him a pension of 200 scudi a-year, which kept him alive till eighty. His brother survived, like Titian, till ninety, painting till the last. In 1516, Albert Durer coming to Venice, rebuked the levity of those who derided the brave old man; he says, with kindly warmth, "every one assures me that he is gran galantuomo, for which reason I wish him well. He is already very old, but notwithstanding, the best painter we have." Ariosto also praises him. The chief disciples of Giovanni were Titian, Giorgione, Bandinello of Ravenna, Mocetto, Conegliano, Girolamo di San Croce, Pennarchi, Bissolo, Catena, Pellegrino. He was buried in the church of St. Giovanni e Paolo (Zanzenopolo). Mantegna, the illustrious pupil of Squarcione, the great Paduan rival of Bellini, who adopted him for his son, married a sister of Giovanni's, but did not adopt his style, which was rather rigid, and founded on the antique. He gained favour, however, by his relations in Venice, and is supposed to have taught his brother-in-law some of the finer subtleties of perspective, of which Mantegna was the first great teacher. The Venetian picture-restorers, learned in flaying and dissecting, thus describe Bellini's mode of painting:—First a ground of gesso and very thin glue, made of boiled leather parings, with a little black added, the glue being to prevent the former getting too absorbent; then came the outline in ink, then the chiaroscuro in a thin wash of brown, then a first coat, the flesh colours rosy and thin, but with more yellow and brown, and another painting with more white to brighten the colour still thin; this kept the flesh tones bright and clear, the rose shining through the white filminess. Asphalt glazings finished the process of flesh painting; the colours being kept thin, the oil dried quick and hard before it could turn rancid. For draperies, Bellini used pure white for the lights, and pure colours for the darks, glazing with transparencies of the local colours, finishing with glazings of asphalt or cologne earth, mixed with naptha (rock oil), or turpentine. The Venetian painters preferred the vegetable to the mineral colours. Bellini was the first to thoroughly break up in Venice the dead conventions of the old Greek school. He abandoned its distemper, its gildings, its lank, lean figures, and all its, ascetic dullnesses. From the earliest times, indeed, Venice had shown a craving for colour, and had excelled in portraiture. Its genius, when Bellini came on the stage, was already lively and joyous, delighting in open-air effects, and in a gorgeous furniture of details, such as commercial men are wont to love. Bellini introduced a thousand fresh modulations into the old, simple, and natural, but dull and monotonous colour which, seldom broken enough, was not always in union. He gave variety to the old conventions of composition. From the first, the Venetian school neglected drawing and encouraged colour, whether from climate or some special oriental influence, we 