Mr. Harford has attempted, by giving sketches of the chief characters of Florence and of Rome during Michel Angelo’s life, to show some of the personal influences which most affected him.  But his bricks all lie separate; they are not built up with mortar that holds them together.  A superficial account of the Platonic Academy is inserted to show the effect of the fashionable philosophy of Florence upon the youthful artist; but it is so done that we learn little more from it than that the Academy existed, that Michel Angelo was a member of it, and that he wrote some poems in which some Platonic ideas are expressed.  There is no philosophic analysis of the individual Platonism which is apparent, not only in his poems, but in some of his paintings,—­no exhibition of its connection with the other portions of his intellectual development.  Michel Angelo’s ideas of beauty, of the relation of the arts, of the connection between Art and Religion, deserve fuller investigation than they have yet received.  His tremendous power has exerted such a control over sensitive, imaginative, and weak minds, that even his errors have been accepted as models, and his false ideas as principles of authority.  Mr. Harford’s book will do little to assist in the formation of a true judgment upon these and similar points.

But we will not confine our notice to assertions; we will exhibit at least some of the minor faults upon which our assertions are based,—­for it would demand larger space than we could give to enter upon the illustration of the principal faults of the book.  First, then, for inaccuracies of statement,—­which are the less to be excused, as Mr. Harford had ample opportunity for correctness.  For instance, in the description of the tombs of the Medici, Mr. Harford writes of the famous figures of Aurora and Twilight, Day and Night:  “The four figures that adorn the tombs are allegorical; and they are specially worthy of notice, because they first set the example of connecting ornamental appendages of this description with funereal monuments.  Introduced by so great an authority, this example was quickly followed throughout the whole of Europe.”  The carelessness of this assertion is curious.  The custom of connecting allegorical figures with funereal monuments had prevailed in Italy for a long time before Michel Angelo.  Perhaps the most striking and familiar instance, and one with which Mr. Harford must have been acquainted, is that afforded by the tombs of the Scaligeri at Verona, where, on the monument to Can Signorio, of the latter part of the fourteenth century, appear Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, and other allegorical figures.

Again, in speaking of the old basilica of St. Peter’s, he speaks of the unusual Orientalism of this the principal church of Western Europe, whose entrance is towards the east and the altar to the west.  Now this Orientalism is by no means unusual in the churches at Rome.  Indeed, it seems to have been the rule of building for the early churches,—­and Santa Maria Maggiore, San Giovanni Laterano, San Sebastiano, San Clemente, and innumerable others, exhibit it in their construction.  The priest, officiating at the altar, which stood advanced into the church, looked toward the east.