VASARI was not among Mantegna's great admirers.* Conditioned as he was by those twin ideals of facility and grazia, he could not help finding Mantegna's manner dry and laboured and his treatment of drapery somewhat crude. Yet there was no denying Mantegna's very consider- able contributions to the history of Italian art, and in concluding his biography of the artist in the 1550 edition of the Vite he noted that Mantegna 'bequeathed to painting the difficulty of foreshortening figures seen from below - a difficult and fanciful invention; and the manner of copper engraving, truly a most singular convenience; by which the whole world has seen not only the Bacchanal, the Battle of the Sea Monsters, the Deposition from the Cross, the Entombment, the Resurection with Longinus and St Andrew - works by the said Mantegna - but the manners of all other subsequent artists'. For him, Mantegna's mastery of engraving was as much a part of the artist's ingenio as his mastery of those other difficulties of art, such as foreshortening and perspective. Of course, Mantegna did not invent copper engraving, and in his 1568 edition Vasari hastened to correct this error. Still, there could be no more eloquent testimony to the prestige the group of engravings associated with Mantegna enjoyed, and there could be no greater justification for the prominence they were accorded in the Mantegna exhibition held at the Royal Academy and the Metropolitan Museum last year. Vasari's testimony should also remind us that the modern tendency to divide the study of the fine arts by media has little validity for the renaissance.

as his mastery of those other difficulties of art, such as foreshortening and perspective. Of course, Mantegna did not invent copper engraving, and in his 1568 edition Vasari hastened to correct this error. Still, there could be no more eloquent testimony to the prestige the group of engravings associated with Mantegna enjoyed, and there could be no greater justification for the prominence they were accorded in the Mantegna exhibition held at the Royal Academy and the Metropolitan Museum last year. Vasari's testimony should also remind us that the modern tendency to divide the study of the fine arts by media has little validity for the renaissance.

ONE element on a drawing in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, has repeatedly been described as 'mysterious'. The recto of the sheet (Fig.9), a pen and ink study of a group of four standing warriors, has been unanimously attributed to Raphael, and most critics have commented on the relationship of the central figure to Dqnatello's St George from Orsanmichele, Florence (now in the Museo Nazionale di Bargello). The verso (Fig.8) has other studies in pen and ink - two side views of a nude male .torso, one concentrating on the right arm, and one of a knee- and a standing male nude drawn in black chalk. These studies have not been accepted as Raphael with the same enthusiasm, but have found champions who consider them to be youthful studies of a nude figure (the two torsos after a model posed in the manner of Michelangelo's David). The sheet is generally considered to date from early in Raphael's so-called Florentine period (c.1505-07), a date derived from the style of the group on the recto. The other ('mysterious') element on the sheet, inked-in on the verso but also visible on the recto, is a pricked profile of a head.

). The sheet is generally considered to date from early in Raphael's so-called Florentine period (c.1505-07), a date derived from the style of the group on the recto. The other ('mysterious') element on the sheet, inked-in on the verso but also visible on the recto, is a pricked profile of a head.

RECENTLY,James Banker published some remarkable documents relating to Sassetta's double-sided altar-piece for S. Francesco, Borgo S. Sepolcro, commissioned in 1437 and completed in 1444. These documents illuminate the relationship between the artist and his patrons and now make it possible to follow in detail the progressive steps of the commission to an unprecedented degree: the history of the commission before it was given to Sassetta; the initial contract; the first payment; the agreements between the painter and the friars regarding the iconographic programme; and finally the setting up of the altar-piece on the altar and the concluding payment to Sassetta. Banker's analysis of the documents is admirably thorough, but it is possible to suggest some refinements to his reconstruction of the back of the altar-piece.

LITTLE is known about the Bolognese Quattrocento painter, Pietro di Giovanni Lianori, and until recently he has frequently been confused with Pietro di Giovanni dalle Tovaglie.* In their history of fifteenth-century Bolognese painters published in 1968, Filippini and Zucchini were able to cite only about ten fixed points in his career, provided by documents and dates of works, and further dates have subsequently come to light. He is now documented from around 1420 to 19th September 1460, the day he made his Will, and a small nucleus of signed paintings has enabled a coherent group of works to be established in recent years, allowing his r6le in the diffusion of the late gothic style in Bologna to be assessed. Despite an apparent parochialism, he must, as Rosalba D'Amico has pointed out, now be considered as one of the outstanding representatives ofBolognese late gothic painting, along with Giovanni di Ottonello, but ranking below Giovanni da Modena and Jacopo Avanzi.

AT the end of his Life of Piero della Francesca, Vasari introduces some pupils of the artist, including a Piero from Castel della Pieve, a town located southwest of Perugia:

Fu suo discepolo ancora Piero da Castel della Pieve, chefece al Borgo un arco sopra Sant'Agostino, ed alle monache di Santa Caterina d'Arezzo un Sant'Urbano, oggi ito per terra per rifare la chiesa.

AMONG the works of art in the little-visited Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra in Bergamo is a fine, but virtually unknown panel representing the Dead Christ with angels (Fig.26). Although generically labelled 'Scuola Veneta del secolo XV', it is clearly by Alvise Vivarini and may be dated to the period of his early maturity, around 1480. A point of close stylistic comparison is provided by the Virgin and Child with saints from Treviso in the Accademia, Venice, which is inscribed with that date: in both works, the somewhat contorted linearism and mannered poses of the early Montefiorentino polyptych of 1476 in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino, have given way to more fluent rhythms, with longer, less broken lines; at the same time, the figures in both works retain an elongation of proportion that was to disappear by the mid-1480s, as can be seen in such works as the Virgin and Child with saints from Belluno (formerly Kaiser- Friedrich-Museum, Berlin; destroyed 1945). Again, as in the altar-piece from Treviso, the composition of the Bergamo panel is still relatively planar, and the figures are similarly restricted to a shallow foreground stage by a suspended curtain.

from Belluno (formerly Kaiser- Friedrich-Museum, Berlin; destroyed 1945). Again, as in the altar-piece from Treviso, the composition of the Bergamo panel is still relatively planar, and the figures are similarly restricted to a shallow foreground stage by a suspended curtain.

IN his welcome new book on Bertoldo di Giovanni, James Draper publishes fourteen contemporary documents, some of them pre- viously unknown, concerning this 'sculptor of the Medicean household', a frustratingly small swag for any Quattrocento artist, let alone one whom Draper urges us to reconsider 'for the quality of his work but also as a character at the heart of artistic proceedings' in Laurentian Florence. To these sparse (and often problematic) sources, I have very recently been able to add a fifteenth document, published in the April 1992 issue of this Magazine, a letter by Bartolommeo Zeffi of 29th December 1491 noting Lorenzo de' Medici's sorrow at Bertoldo's death from quinsy 'because he loved him as much as any of his familiars'. Incidentally, I also drew attention to yet another nugget concerning Bertoldo, to be found in the published ricordi segreti of Francesco Cegia, Lorenzo's major-domo, which showed the sculptor's 'estate' to have been in minor debt to his patron's heirs in the mid 1490s for earlier transactions, clearly made en famille, of which Cegia had kept no official record at the time.

of which Cegia had kept no official record at the time.

THOSE who know German museums will have learnt with sadness that Jan Lauts died thisJanuary in his 85th year. Lauts was one of the last survivors of the pre-war generation who started their careers as volunteer workers in the Print Room of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. Having studied with Panofsky in Hamburg and with Wilde in Vienna, he moved in September 1939 from Berlin to Karlsruhe to take up an appointment at the Kunsthalle. His first session in the town which was to be his home for the rest of his life was a short one, as he joined the army three weeks later. Military service included time in a British prisoner of war camp in which, he assured an English friend, 'we were always treated like gentlemen'. After the war, he returned to Karlsruhe, where he succeeded Dr Martin as Director in 1956, eventually retiring seventeen years later.