To deny that each of the Italian centres had its own strong personality in art--that painting, as practised in Genoa or Naples, differed from the painting of Ferrara or Urbino--would be to contradict a law that has been over and over again insisted upon already in these volumes.
The broad outlines of the subject can be briefly stated.

Surveying the map of Italy, we find that we may eliminate from our consideration the north-western and the southern provinces.

Not from Piedmont nor from Liguria, not from Rome nor from the extensive kingdom of Naples, does Italian painting take its origin, or at any period derive important contributions.[119] Lombardy, with the exception of Venice, is comparatively barren of originative elements.[120] To Tuscany, to Umbria, and to Venice, roughly speaking, are due the really creative forces of Italian painting; and these three districts were marked by strong peculiarities.

In art, as in politics, Florence and Venice exhibit distinct types of character.[121] The Florentines developed fresco, and devoted their genius to the expression of thought by scientific design.
The Venetians perfected oil-painting, and set forth the glory of the world as it appeals to the imagination and the senses.

The art of Florence may seem to some judges to savour over-much of intellectual dryness; the art of Venice, in the apprehension of another class of critics, offers something over-much of material richness.