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In Florence. 357 in art, or rather a degenerator, for it was he who, by giving an undue prominence to drapery which it had never before received, and similar alterations, started the decline in sacred historic painting. Antonello da Messina (ab. 1414 — ab. 1496)— although he belongs, strictly speaking, to the Venetian school — must be mentioned here on account of his introduction of the improved method of mixing oil colours, which he learnt in Flanders. The National Gallery possesses a work by him, a Salvator Mundi; and three important pictures are preserved in the Berlin Museum, of these the Head of S, Sebastian and a Madonna and Child are considered the best. As great Florentine painters of the fifteenth century, we must also name — Lippi's adopted son, Filippino Lippi (1460 — 1504), who copied his style and excelled him in his peculiar merits ; he was the author of SS. Peter and Paul before the Pro- consul, and other fine frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, so often referred to (see p. 351). He also painted important works in the Strozzi chapel in S. Maria Novella, Florence, and in Rome and Prato. There are three works by him in the National Gallery. Benozzo Gozzoli (1420 — 1498), the pupil of Fra Angel- ico, but inferior to him, whose best works are twenty-four frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and whose style may be studied in two easel pictures in the National Gallery. He was very lavish with elaborate accessories. Andrea del Castagno (1390 — 1457), who until quite recently has been considered the murderer of Domenico Veneziano (ab. 1420 — 1461), who survived him four years, and from whom he is said to have obtained the secret of the