SKETCHES FROM ST. GEORGE'S FIELDS. D. 22.7.97 BY GIORGIONE DI CASTEL CHIUSO. ALL HOPE ABANDON YE WHO ENTER HERE. CARY'S Dante. LONDON: STODART AND STEUART, 81, STRAND. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. I AM a native of Italy, and a lineal descendant of the celebrated Giorgione di Castel Franco, whose inimitable works excited the admiration, and perhaps the envy, even of Titian; and though the fame of the latter be more widely dif fused, I must so far do justice to my great ancestor, as to assert that his genius was more original than that of the illustrious Painter of Cadore. It a may be that I am a little swayed by partiality; but I always thought that the latter never entirely divested himself of the manner he acquired from Bellini, and which is observable, especially in the folding of the draperies, in some of his best pictures. Witness his Abraham and Isaac, and even that noble work the" Pietro Martire." My father, though not affluent, was possessed of a sufficient competency: he was passionately fond of the Arts, and of Literature. All who excelled in either ever found a welcome in his house. With my earliest recollections is associated a noble portrait of the great Giorgione, or, as he was always empha |