New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-12-18
NEW PUBLICATIONS
,Ipr or TuE DIVINE ARTIST.

French of Eugene Muniz London ana new "
MI, ..-oao,,t t;f Of the great artist to whom the
~,,o,Id ~, common consent has allowed the ultie
"dyine will 90 far to satisfy the want thaV mas
Ion, heen felt for work that should meet Ihe hoou'
so,oors nv giving the results of the latest lnVes-
s;not;ons while at the same time, its style ana
shirt should make ii attractive TO laymen'
Good life of Raphael was to have been expected
from Vasari, but the sixty-hve pages gwen T"
Raphael in the famous Lives" Hngllshleoltion-
Robnl against the one hundred and fifty-thrce to
Michelangelo, make one of the least SATISFACTORY
of the biographies, while at the same time they are
Of necessity the foundation of all that has since
been written on the subject We ere content WIN
REGARDING the fact without repeating any OF the con-
lectures by which il has been endeavored 10 explain
Next to Vasari's Life in importance comes the
work of j. ID. Passavant (Itafael Won UrDiho uhu
eein Water Giovanni Santi 3 vols. Lelpzig' 1907
1S5Sl which might have made another WOrh On INC
snbect unnecessary if the perception ana the ihtei
,ecnoI fairness of the author had been equal to his
industry Unfortunately this Is far from Delhg Tue
case and the further scholars push the work OF IN
yestigation the evidences are dlscov-
cred of the Germans inaccuracy ana
want Of intellectual assortment. In all doubt
fu cases his declsOns-fOr the most part gwen Gr-
oafbedya-are now little considered, or II they are
aeccpted it is because they have had some weight
ier authority than his own. Passayant was one Oh
the crowd of fOurih-rate Germans who were planted
and watered in England by the late Prince Consort
and who were encouraged to put forth their IeeOie
cotylcdons in tine sunshine of court that made 10
secret of ITS low opinion of English civilization nor
of its belief in the necessity of large doses OF Ter
man culture and refinement, II art ana literature
vould ever recover their health on English ground
.,1,oe IN pflp
a,neboration was Passava0t and the approval gwen
In his work on Raphael in high quarters, with the
nralse layished upon it by writers i'll England ana
in Germany who accepted it without putting them
selves to the trouble of examining IT, have been
strong enough to carry the work almost unqueS-
toned down to u very receE period.
As we are touching upon works on Raphael, few
minor productions must not he forgotten. We owe
much TO such studies as Mr.. Charles Ciements
sketch of the artists life IN his MIchei-Ange'
Leonard de Vinc, Raphael" Paris, loGl-
this book has gone through three or four
editions. and has been translated into
English; Anton Springer's Rafael and Michel
angelo Leipzig, 1S77-1S7s, a work of great
value rendered almost unreadablc for pleasure
owing to its treatment OF the two subjects in alter
mating chapters; and last though not least,
10 the work # our own learned and ac-
comphshed countryman, Charles c. Peikins's
Raphael and MichelaDgclo" Boston, 1878. This
is work of no great extent but 1t Is the result OF
independent study and research that never came to
their desc we'd reward owing chiefly, Lave no
doubt to the radical mistake of the author IN at
tempting to write the lives of two artists in one
volume by tine crude device OF series OF alteTnat-
ing chapters. CurOusly enough. the same thing has
been attempted as we have just seen, by Anton
Springer in his book the first volume Of which was
10 Mr. iug's hnp
appear until 1878 though the dedication to the poet
Iongfellow. dated 1877, shows that the work was
then completed Some thing of the failure of the
hook to attract the public must also be ascrlbed
10 the downright ugness of its Illustrations and the
bad makeup of the book In general. Ii MI Perkins
could be persuaded to break up his mould and make
OF his one book two-a Life of Raphael and Life OF
MichelangelO-and PRINT them without any at
tempt at illustration unless he could hnd pub
Usher who had never heard of the dismal device OF
helIotypy, but who had heard of wood engraving,
believed in it and willing to pay for IT, we have
no doubt his scholarship and literary skill would
make the result one very acceptable to the aroving
Vublic.
Mr. Muntz's work surpasses all the works on
Raphael that we have mentioned by its ex-
tent flllness and pains-taking accuracy, while
leaving to those of Clement, Springer and Per
kins the charm that hes in sketches whole In
themselves, polished and rounded to completeness.
In nineteen chapters we follow the life OF the
master and trace the rich and varied influences that
made him what he became. The book opens with
an account of the City of Urbno, and with sketch
of the ducal family of the Montefeltr, whose love
of learning and of art, with their bravery III war,
and their skill in the government Of their province
have made their name forever part OF the history
of their times The names of FEDERICO /. and of
I al he IOuOFablV
associated with the story of Italian culture. We
cannot find IN Mr. Muntz's book any reference to
Depnistoun's Duke of UrbnO." work of real
value to which we would refer the reader
who may wish to know more than Mr. Muntz mas
thought it necessary to give OF the history OF TINS
little province with its of not much more than
100 square miles which played a part in the world
out of all proportion TO its size. I'm Urbino were
born says Mr.. Muntz the greatest OF modern
architects and the greatest of modern painters
Rramante and Raphael" But. at an earlier period
the way had been prepared for iustrious births by
the splendid reign of FEDERICO |. This nobleman,
whom NJ Rio in his work on Christian art puts
above the Medici princes for the disntercstedness
of the announcement he gave to art and literature
az well As 10 everything that pertains to culture,
made of the splendid palace with which he crowned
his eyre-like citadel, almost university. Accord
ing to his bcgrapher, VespasiDo del Bisticci, :" he
spent thirty thousand ducatS in the formation OF
library. but it is worthy Of note that he
shared the preudices of many of his contemporaries
with regard to printed books which were just begin
ming to circulate in Italy, and nothing would have
induced him to admit of them into his library"
His manuscripts were all bound in crimson orna-
mented with silver, and it may be added that the
collection still exists in the library of the Vatican
In room especially devoted to it, so much of it, at
least as was not lost in the revolutions of 1903 and
1907 The collection was transported TO the Vati-
can in 1853 and Includes in its present state many
additions made after the death of FEDERICO among
them not few of those printed books which he so
much desplsed but which his successors knew how