Influences Of Umbria And Verona ( Originally Published 1906 )
GENTILE DA FABRIANO, the Umbrian master, when he reached Venice
in the early years of the fifteenth century, was already a man
of note. He had received his art education in Florence, and he
brought with him fresh and delicate devices for the enrichment
of painting with gold, which, derived as it was from the Sienese
assimilation of Byzantine methods, was very superior in fancy
and refinement to anything that Venice had to show. He was a man
of a gentle, mystic temperament, but he was accustomed to
courts, and a finished master whose technique and artistic value
was far beyond any-thing that the local painters were capable
of. He spent some years in Venice, adorning the great hall with
episodes from the legend of Barbarossa ; one of these, which is
specially cited, was of the battle between the Emperor and the
Venetians. Gentile was working till about 1414, and the walls,
finished by Pisanello, were covered by 1416. After this Gentile
remained some