5.  Michael Angelo.  The composition, in the Florence Gallery, styled a Holy Family, appears to me a signal example of all that should be avoided.  It is, as a conception, neither religious nor domestic; in execution and character exaggerated and offensive, and in colour hard and dry.

Another, a bas-relief, in which the Child is shrinking from a bird held up by St. John, is very grand in the forms:  the mistake in sentiment, as regards the bird, I have pointed out in the Introduction. (Royal Academy.) A third, in which the Child leans pensively on a book lying open on his mother’s knee, while she looks out on the spectator, is more properly a Mater Amabilis.

There is an extraordinary fresco still preserved in the Casa Buonarotti at Florence, where it was painted on the wall by Michael Angelo, and styled a Holy Family, though the exact meaning of the subject has been often disputed.  It appears to me, however, very clear, and one never before or since attempted by any other artist.  (This fresco is engraved in the Etruria Pittrice.) Mary is seated in the centre; her Child is reclining on the ground between her knees; and the little St. John holding his cross looks on him steadfastly.  A man coming forward seems to ask of Mary, “Whose son is this?” She most expressively puts aside Joseph with her hand, and looks up, as if answering, “Not the son of an earthly, but of a heavenly Father!” There are five other figures standing behind, and the whole group is most significant.

6.  Albert Durer.  The Holy Family seated under a tree; the Infant is about to spring from the knee of his mother into the outstretched arms of St. Anna; Joseph is seen behind with his hat in his hand; and to the left sits the aged Joachim contemplating the group.

7.  Mary appears to have just risen from her chair, the Child bends from her arms, and a young and very little angel, standing on tiptoe, holds up to him a flower—­other flowers in his lap:—­a beautiful old German print.

8.  Giulio Romano. (La Madonna del Bacino.) (Dresden Gal.) The Child stands in a basin, and the young St. John pours water upon him from a vase, while Mary washes him.  St. Elizabeth stands by, holding a napkin; St. Joseph, behind, is looking on.  Notwithstanding the homeliness of the action, there is here a religious and mysterious significance, prefiguring the Baptism.

9.  N. Poussin.  Mary, assisted by angels, washes and dresses her Child.  (Gal. of Mr. Hope.)

10.  V. Salimbeni.—­An Interior.  Mary and Joseph are occupied by the Child.  Elizabeth is spinning.  More in front St. John is carrying two puppies in the lappet of his coat, and the dog is leaping up to him.  (Florence, Pitti Pal.) This is one out of many instances in which the painter, anxious to vary the oft-repeated subject, and no longer restrained by refined taste or religious veneration, has fallen into a most offensive impropriety.