through the colonnades is adorned with towers and steeples in the minute fashion of Van der Weyden. After a residence of a few years at Antwerp, Gossaert took service with Philip of Burgundy, bastard of Philip the Good, at that time lord of Somerdyk and admiral of Zeeland. One of his pictures had already become celebrated: a Descent from the Cross (50 figures), on the high altar of Tongerlo Abbey. Philip of Burgundy ordered Gossaert to execute a replica for the church of Middelburg, and the value which was then set on the picture is apparent from the fact that Dürer came expressly to Middelburg (1521) to see it. In 1568 the altarpiece perished by fire. In 1508 Gossaert accompanied Philip of Burgundy on his Italian mission to the pope, and by this accident an important revolution was effected in the art of the Netherlands. Gossaert appears to have chiefly studied in Italy the cold and polished works of the Leonardesques. He not only brought home a new style, but he also introduced the fashion of travelling to Italy; and from that time till the age of Rubens and Van Dyck it was considered proper that all Flemish painters should visit the peninsula. The Flemings grafted Italian mannerisms on their own stock, and the cross turned out so unfortunately that for a century Flemish art lost all trace of originality. Gossaert undoubtedly made a large number of drawings in Rome after the innumerable ancient ruins and sculptures that the city had. Today only four surviving magazines are known; a sheet with the ruins of the Colosseum (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett), a study of the so-called Apollo Kitharoedos (Venice, Accademia), a study of the so-called Capitolean Hercules (Private collection, London), and a sheet with studies of, among others, the famous Spinario or “thorn extractor” (Leiden, Leiden University Library's Print Room). In the summer of 1509 Philip returned to the Netherlands, and, retiring to his seat of Suytburg in Zeeland, surrendered himself to the pleasures of planning decorations for his castle and ordering pictures of Gossaert and Jacopo de' Barbari. Being in constant communication with the court of Margaret of Austria at Mechelen, he gave the artists in his employ fair chances of promotion. Barbari was made court painter to the regent, whilst Gossaert received less important commissions. Records prove that Gossaert painted a (posthumous) portrait of Eleanor of Portugal, and other small pieces,