_Antonio Vivarini_ (Venetian: died 1470).
Antonio da Murano, called also Antonio Vivarini, was the eldest
of a family of painters, who played a part in the development
of the Venetian School corresponding to that of Giotto and his
circle in the Florentine School. The Venetian is, it will be
seen, a century later than the Florentine (_cf._ Introduction).
It was at the adjacent island of Murano (where most of the
Venetian glass is now made, and which was once the resort of
the wealthier Venetian citizens) that an independent school
first developed itself, Antonio and his brother Bartolommeo
(see 284) being natives of that place. The work of the
Vivarini was to impart a distinctively artistic impulse to the
conventional craftsmanship which previously prevailed in Venice
in accordance with Byzantine traditions. Recently published
documents (dated 1272) give a curious insight into the position
and work of the earliest Venetian painters (see Richter's
_Lectures on the National Gallery_, pp. 23-29). They were
treated merely as artisans. They were engaged for the most part
in work which would now be classed as industrial craftsmanship
in painting arms and furniture. Paintings, in our sense of the
word, were an unimportant and occasional branch of their work.
The division of labour which in our own day is a frequent cause
of industrial disputes (as, for instance, between builders and
plasterers) was then in dispute between painters and gilders.
A recorded case was settled as follows: "We judge it just
to permit the gilder to use colour, and the painter to use
gilding, when the one or the other plays a subordinate part in
the finished work. A decision in the opposite sense would seem
to us hard; for it would be inconvenient to decree that a work
which can be done by one, must be done by two. Thus, though
each litigant loses, each is compensated for his loss. The
profession of the gilder is gilding, but painting is permitted
as an accessory. In like manner painting is the profession of
the painter, but gilding is permitted as an accessory." In
this picture, St. Peter's key is, it will be seen, embossed
in goldsmiths' fashion, and Bartolommeo's picture has a gold
background. Antonio Vivarini first worked in partnership with
a certain Zuan (Giovanni), who appears to have been a German
by birth, and the visitor will notice between the work of the
early Venetian School a certain affinity with the contemporary
German work of the Cologne School. After 1450 the name of
Johannes the German disappears from the inscriptions on
Vivarini altar-pieces, and that of Bartolommeo takes its place.