MORON, or Moron de laFrontera, a town of Spain, in the province of Seville, about 32 miles to the southeast of that city, occupies an irregular site upon broken chalk hillocks at a distance of a mile and a half from the right bank of the Guadaira. It is connected by rail with Utrera on the Cadiz and Seville line. On the highest elevation to the eastward are the ruins of the ancient castle, of considerable importance during the Moorish period, and afterwards used as a palace by the counts of Urena. In 1810-11 it was fortified by the French, but blown up by them in the following year. The chief public building of Moron is the large parish church, which dates from the 16 th century, but presents no noteworthy features. The fine district between Moron and the Serrania de Ronda is largely occupied by olive plantations, and the trade in oil and other agricultural produce forms the chief industry of the town. Moron is also famous throughout Spain for its chalk (cal de Moron), from which the whitewash extensively used in the Peninsula is derived. The population of the town was 14,879 in 1878.

MORONI, Giambattista (c. 1510-1578), an eminent portrait-painter of the Venetian school, was born at Albino near Bergamo about 1510, and became a pupil of Bon vicino named II Moretto. Beyond the record of his works very few particulars regarding him have reached us. Titian, under whom also Moroni, while still very young, is said to have studied (but this appears hardly probable), had at any rate a high opinion of his powers; he said that Moroni made his portraits “living” or “actual” (υeri). And if the magnates of Bergamo came to the great Venetian for their likenesses he advised them to go to their own countryman. In truthful and animated portraiture Moroni ranks near Titian himself. His portraits do not indeed attain to a majestic monumental character; but they are full of straightforward life and individuality, with genuine unforced choice of attitude, and excellent texture and arrangement of draperies. There is a certain tendency to a violet tint in the flesh, and the drawing and action of the hands are not first-rate. As leading samples of his portraits may be mentioned—in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the Nobleman pointing to a Flame, inscribed “Et quid volo nisi ut ardeat?”; in the National Gallery, London, the portraits of a Tailor, a member of the Fenaroli family, Canon Ludovico de’ Terzi, and others; in the Berlin Gallery, his own portrait; and in Stafford House, the seated half-figure of the Jesuit Ercole Tasso, currently termed “Titian’s Schoolmaster ”—not as indicating any real connexion between the sitter and Titian, but only the consummate excellence of the work. Besides his portraits, Moroni painted, from youth to his latest days, the ordinary round of sacred compositions; but in these he falls below his master II Moretto, and ...