It has sometimes been supposed that, besides the Luigi who was the latest of this pictorial family, there had also been another Luigi who was the earliest, this supposition being founded on the fact that one picture is signed with the name, with the date 1414. There is good ground, however, for considering this date to be a forgery of a later time.
The works of Luigi show an advance on those of his predecessors, and some of them are productions of high attainment; one of the best was executed for the Scuola di S. Girolamo in Venice, representing the saint caressing his lion, and some monks decamping in terror. The architecture and perspective in this work are superior.
Other works by Luigi are in Treviso and in Milan. He painted some remarkable portraits.
The Vivarinis had now been firmly established in Venice for two generations, and were the best-known and most popular of her painters.
The Council accepted Alvise's offer with little delay, and he was told to paint a picture for a space hitherto occupied by one of Pisanello's, and was given a salary of sixty ducats a year, something less than that drawn by Giovanni Bellini.
Alvise has two reading saints on either side of the altarpiece of 1480, and of these the Baptist is one of his best figures, " admirably expressive of tension and of brooding thought." It is large and free in stroke, and particularly advanced in the treatment of the foliage.
Antonio Vivarini of Murano is best known by the large altarpieces painted in cooperation with a northern artist, perhaps from Cologne, Johannes Alemannus, with whom he was associated from 1440 to 1447.
AlviseVivarini, called also Luigi, the son of Antonio, entered the studio of his uncle Bartolommeo and painted for several years in the Muranese manner.
Alvise has pictured her here with so much of individuality and determination of character that one could believe it the portrait of some energetic prioress of his own acquaintance.
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