Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/612

 502 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vm. J E 25, 1921. found its highest development in the Settecento ; with his master, Volpato, he carried the art of engraving to its e,po- theosis, to an excellence unrivalled by any engraver of modern times. Morghen was fortunate in having as patron General the Marquis Manfredini, a wealthy Padovan still held in honour in that town. Man- fredini commissioned Morghen, in addition to his work as an engraver, to form a collec- tion of engravings from the earliest times, and to this commission we owe the magnifi- cent collection in the Seminario which traces, in its three hundred examples, the development of the art from Albrecht Diirer until the Settecento. No student of book illustration, as well as of engraving on a larger scale, can neglect this collection, and no modern master can omit Morghen, since the technique of the latter is fully as modern as that of Timothy Cole and infinitely finer in the realization of subtle effects of light softening gradually into half-shadow folds and dull gleams on flesh, rising of muscle over muscle in a fine velvety suggestion. In the great en- gravings that of the Cena of Leonardo da Vinci, where the impression of actual impulsive life comes more directly into the engraving than into the fresco ; of the Vergine col Bambino of Titian, where the soft beauty of the child lying on the ground seems to glow and shiver in a delicate play of light ; of the Madonna della Seggiola, where a hackneyed subject becomes im- pressive as art in a different medium the power and genius of Morghen rise to a level with the genius of the artist and both meet on the higher plane of art. In the Madonna del Sacco of Andrea del Sarto, the Danza delle stagioni of Nicolas Poussin, the Ritratto di Dante of Toffanelli, and the fine Fornarina of Raphael, where a finished and unfinished engraving of the same sub- ject are placed side by side to show the deli- cate art of the engraver so that the student can trace the development of the engraving from the first outline, to the first undertone and to the last delicate touch which gives life and colour to shadow, the treatment becomes freer and more spontaneous, more instinctive Intuitive almost in the touch until in what we must consider his master- piece the Sant' Andrea of Raphael the force of line in shadow and the strong grouping of light even within light gives an impression of strength and even majesty which we cannot feel in confrontation with the original. The objection may be made that this is a weakness in the engraver, who should transfer his subject to the steel without the impression of his own personality, but the art of painting is not the art of engraving and each must be considered only in itself, in direct relation to art. In this art appreciation Morghen must take a very high place. The Settecento still remains to be studied as it should be studied, as the century which contributed more than any Bother to our modern appreciation of the subtler, more exquisite things in that beauty which is wrongly considered as artificial, the beauty of printing, engraving, cameos, furniture, lace, arrazzi subtle little things leading the mind to a new, radiant world where the vision rests in gratitude and the emotions are stirred to a delicately gracious music, a music, however, which has in it an infinite and even profound beauty. Such a music hovers round the art of Raphael Morghen. HUGH QUIGLEY. Verona. IRISH FAMILY HISTORY. (See 12 S. iii. 500 ; vi. 208, 308 ; vii. 2, 25, 65, 105, 163, 223, 306, 432 ; viii. 443.) REYNOLDS OF COOLBEG, CO. DONEGAL. THE following pedigree has been compiled in collaboration with Mrs. R. J. Reynolds of Ballyshannon, and we are greatly indebted to the late Sir E. Bewley, Knt., of Dublin, for the assistance he gave us by his researches on our behalf in the records in Dublin. The Robert Reynolds first mentioned below is the earliest member of this family of whom I can find any record. O'Farrell's ' Linea Antiqua,' in Ulster's Office, Dublin Castle, contains an extensive pedigree of the Magrannal (anglice, Reynolds) family, but nothing, so far as I can ascertain, enabling one to say definitely that this Robert Reynolds is a member of " such and such " a branch of the Magrannals. Possibly a further search amongst the Dublin records might reveal a clue to particulars of himself and his ancestors this I am hoping to undertake when able to revisit Dublin. Robert Reynolds of Donegal, in Co. Donegal, evidently owned property at Drumholme, Co. Donegal, and probably