Masolino, the son of a house painter, was born in Panicale in 1383. His real name was Tommaso di Cristoforo di Fino, and he was familiarly called Masolino da Panicale. According to Vasari he was a pupil of “Starnina” and worked under Ghiberti. He was admitted into the Florentine Guild of Painters in 1423. In that year he was commissioned to paint the frescoes in the new chapel of the Carmine, built by Felice Brancacci, and he took for his assistant, Masaccio, who went on with the work when Masolino was sent to Hungary in 1425 to decorate a church at Stuhlweissenburg.

When Masolino returned to Florence—after several years—he found that great changes had taken place in art, for the painters had been busy with the new problems of perspective and light and shade and the substitution of Classic for Gothic architecture and decoration. Masolino availed himself of the new ideas, but could not quite forget his Giottesque traditions. He painted frescoes in Rome, Naples, and Lombardy.

“Masolino,” Vasari wrote, “was a man of rare intelligence and his paintings are executed with great love and diligence. I have often examined his works and find his style to be essentially different from the styles of those before him. He gave majesty to his figures and introduced finely designed folds in his draperies. He began to understand light and shade and to give his forms relief and succeeded in some very difficult foreshortenings. He also gave greater sweetness of expression to his women heads and gayer costumes to his young men, and his perspective is tolerably correct. But, above all, he excelled in fresco-painting. This he did so well, and with such delicately blending colors, that his flesh tones have the utmost softness imaginable; and if he could have drawn more perfectly, he would deserve to be numbered among the best artists.”

GABRIEL, THE ANNOUNCING ANGEL.

This panel and the one succeeding it, The Virgin Receiving the Divine Message, originally formed a diptych. In treatment and expression they resemble the figures in Fra Angelico’s Annunciation in the Oratorio del Gesù at Cortona.

The Archangel, according to Dante’s expression, has brought the long-desired tidings and he stands on a background of gold with wings still extended like those of a dove, just alighted from the heavens, looking into Mary’s face very earnestly, and pointing upward to emphasize to her that he comes from the spheres above. This Gabriel is one of the most beautiful of Fra Angelico’s most beautiful angels, his wings being of an extraordinary elegance of contour and a peculiar loveliness of color—rose, violet, green, and yellow, scintillating in iridescent play. His crimson robe, shading into high lights and fainter tones, is richly, although very simply, decorated with bands of gold embroidery in the Byzantine style. The hair is blonde and beautifully curled and the head stands out in fine relief from the golden glory. Notice the beauty of the ear and the distinguished line of the neck, the calm, deep, unattached gaze of the eye, the refined and sensitive nose, the pure and lovely mouth, and the graceful, strong, and very psychic hands. This figure perfectly fits Ruskin’s tribute to Fra Angelico in Modern Painters:

“The art of Fra Angelico, both in drawing and color, is perfect, and his work may be recognized at any distance by its rainbow play and brilliancy, like a piece of opal among common marbles. In order to effect clearer distinction between heavenly beings and those of this world, he represents the former as clothed in draperies of the purest color, crowned with glories of burnished gold and entirely shadowless; the flames on their foreheads waving brighter as they move; the sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of the sun upon the sea; while they listen in the pauses of alternate song for the prolonging of the trumpet blast and the answering of psalm and harp and cymbal, throughout the endless deep and from all the star-shores of Heaven. This mode of treatment, combined as it is with exquisite choice of gesture and disposition of drapery, gives perhaps the best idea of spiritual beings which the human mind is capable of forming.”

THE VIRGIN RECEIVING THE DIVINE MESSAGE.

In an attitude of divine submission, devout humility, and serene grace, the Virgin Mary is listening to the words of the Angel Gabriel. Her brow is almost as clear and pure as that of Gabriel himself and her features are beautiful, especially those heavy-lidded eyes. Her blonde hair is exquisitely arranged, confined by a band of black velvet and encircled by a nimbus, of which she is apparently unconscious. Mary wears a crimson robe with bands of gold around the neck and sleeves, over which is a blue mantle lined with yellow. Her hands are capable, exquisite, and very high bred; and in the left one she holds, with rare grace, a red book.

Like the companion panel, Gabriel, the Announcing Angel, the background is gold. The dimensions of each are 14½ × 10 inches. Both pictures were long in the Collection of the Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace; and afterwards were in the Collection of Mr. John Edward Taylor and in that of Mr. Carl W. Hamilton. In an unpublished letter regarding these works Mr. Berenson writes:

“They are among the sweetest, purest, and most candid of Fra Angelico’s paintings. I could not easily point to others which better justify the surname of ‘The Angelic’ given to this artist, who was so great that he was child-like. These panels date from about 1425, that is to say from the best year of Fra Angelico’s maturity. They show his best self, emancipated from the cramping traditions he was heir to, but not yet showing sign of spiritual fatigue leading finally to his painting a little by rote. In coloring they are exquisite; and for pictures five centuries old, they are almost miraculously well preserved.”

Vasari’s words show how deeply Fra Angelico was appreciated by men who lived closer to his time than we:

“This truly angelic father spent his whole life in the service of God and his fellow-creatures. He was a man of simple habits and most saintly in all his ways. He kept himself from all worldliness and was so good a friend to the poor that I think his soul must be already in Heaven. He worked continually at his art, but would never paint anything but sacred subjects. He might have been a wealthy man, but he did not care for money and used to say that true riches consist in being content with little. He might have enjoyed high dignities both in his convent and in the world, but he cared nothing for these things, saying that he who would practice painting has need of quiet and should be free from worldly cares; and that he who would do the work of Christ must live continually with Him. He was never known to be impatient with the Brothers,—a thing to me almost incredible! When people asked him for a picture he always replied that, with the Prior’s approval, he would try and satisfy their wishes. He never corrected or retouched his works, but left them as he first painted them, saying that such was the will of God. He never took his pencil up without a prayer and could not paint a Crucifixion without the tears running down his cheeks. And the saints that he painted are more like saints in face and expression than those of any other master. And since it seemed that saints and angels of beauty so divine could only be painted by the hand of an angel, he was always called Fra Angelico.”

Fra Angelico was born in 1387 in a little hamlet called Vicchio, in the province of Mugello in Tuscany, about twenty miles from Florence. His surname is unknown—if indeed he had one—for his father, who lived in a cottage belonging to the lord of the Castle of Vicchio, was simply known as Pietro of Mugello. Guido was the name his father gave him but he changed this to Fra Giovanni, when he became a monk of the Dominican Order at Fiesole in 1406. It is supposed that he had been thoroughly trained as a painter, because he immediately began to paint frescoes for the monks; and it is also supposed that “Starnina” was his master. Owing to religious troubles, the Dominican monks were driven from Fiesole to Foligno and thence to Cortona, where the earliest extant works—movable altar-pieces—of Fra Angelico are preserved. In 1418 the Dominicans returned to Fiesole, where Fra Angelico, or rather Fra Giovanni, lived for the next few years and where he painted many of his most famous altar-pieces.

In 1434 Cosimo de’ Medici was recalled from banishment and he immediately had the Convent of San Marco rebuilt for the Dominican monks of Fiesole. When the new building was ready in 1436 he commissioned Fra Angelico to decorate the walls. In a cell which Cosimo de’ Medici had reserved for his own personal retreat from worldly cares, he had Fra Angelico paint a large Adoration of the Magi, for he desired to have “this example of Eastern kings laying down their crowns at the manger of Bethlehem always before his eyes as a reminder for his own guidance as a ruler.”

While Fra Angelico was busy on a series of small panels depicting the Life of Christ for a credenza in which the altar-plate was kept and which had been ordered by Piero de’ Medici (Cosimo’s son), Pope Eugenius IV called him to Rome, to paint a chapel in St. Peter’s. Three of the remaining panels of the credenza were painted by Alesso Baldovinetti.

After completing the chapel in St. Peter’s, Fra Angelico was invited to paint in the Cathedral at Orvieto; and, on finishing the work there, he returned to Rome to spend three years decorating the Pope’s Oratory in the Vatican. In 1450 he was back in Florence, and he began the new year of 1451 as Prior of his old monastery at Fiesole. Again he went to Rome and died there in the House of his Order at Santa Maria sopra Minerva on March 18, 1455. He was buried in the monastery church by the high altar and not far from the tomb of St. Catherine of Siena. Pope Nicholas V wrote for him a Latin epitaph, the last line of which reads: “That city which is the flower of Etruria bore me, Giovanni.”

The paintings of Fra Angelico are noted for their fine composition, beautiful coloring, and variety and expression in the heads and faces of his persons and Angels. Fra Angelico’s Angels are particularly beautiful; and it is reasonable to infer that it is because of these Angels so many of his works have been preserved. No other painter of the Fifteenth Century has been treated with so much reverence as Fra Angelico. The consequence is that there are somewhere between two and three hundred of his compositions in existence. The greater number are still in Florence. Every large gallery, however, possesses one or more. Among the most famous ones that all the world knows and loves are The Virgin and Child surrounded by Twelve Angels, ten of whom are playing musical instruments (now in the Uffizi); Christ with the Banner of Resurrection (in the National Gallery, London); and The Coronation of the Virgin (in the Louvre), of which Gautier said the figures represented “visible souls rather than bodies—thoughts of human form enveloped in chaste draperies of white, rose, and blue, sown with stars and embroidered, clothed as might be the happy spirits who rejoice in the eternal light of Paradise.” Fra Angelico’s greatest frescoes are in the Convent of San Marco at Florence and in the Vatican at Rome.

Fra Angelico is classed variously as a “Primitive,” a “Gothic,” an “International,” and an “Early Renaissance” painter. The fact is he stands between the old and the new. His position in Art is very definitively described by Berenson:

“Yet simple though he was as a person, simple and one-sided as was his message, as a product he was singularly complex. He was the typical painter of the transition from Mediæval to Renaissance. The sources of his feeling are in the Middle Ages, but he enjoys his feelings in a way which is almost modern; and almost modern also are his means of expression. Moreover, he was not only the first Italian to paint a landscape that can be identified (a view of Lake Trasimene from Cortona) but the first to communicate a sense of the pleasantness of Nature.”

As a tribute to his spiritual qualities let us listen to Mrs. Cartwright’s eulogy:

“All the mystic thought of the Mediæval world, the passionate love of God and man that beat in the heart of St. Francis, the yearnings of Dante’s soul after a higher and more perfect order, the poetic dreams of the monks who sang of the Celestial Country are embodied in the art of Angelico. The depth and sincerity of his own religious feeling lent wings to his imagination and the exquisite purity of his soul breathes in every line of his painting: it is his own sweet and gentle fancy that brings down these enchanted visions of Paradise.”

ST. COSIMAS AND ST. DAMIANUS.

About the year 1436 Cosimo commissioned Fra Angelico to paint the altar-piece for the Church of San Marco in Florence (see page 37). Underneath the group of the Virgin and Child Fra Angelico painted for the predella nine beautiful panels representing the legendary history of Cosimas and Damianus, the patron saints of the Medici family. The panel, shown here, tempera on wood (14¼ × 18 inches), which comes from the collection of Mr. F. Böhler of Munich, is one of these nine pictures. The companion pictures of this S. Marco altar-piece are now in Dublin, Florence, Munich, and Paris.

This composition, divided into two episodes in one building, represents the traditional benevolence of the two Saints, Cosimas and Damianus. In the scene at the left, enacted within a room, which we view through a large, rounded, door-like opening, St. Cosimas and St. Damianus, with golden nimbi, are administering to a sick man sitting up in a bed which is elevated on a daïs. The two Saints, in the blue robe, red mantle, and red and white biretta of the physicians, are standing on either side of the bed, offering nutriment to the invalid and giving their benediction. Kneeling behind the bed-head are a man and a woman, the latter wearing a red mantle and white hood, the former a turban-like cap. Over the bed stretches a deep, square, brown canopy with an olive-green curtain all around it. On the daïs rests a tray with an ewer, and beside it on the floor, we see a round stool with three legs, and a foot-stool.

The scene on the right, takes place in a cobbled court-yard of a white house, and here we see one of the Saints, in his physician’s gown, colored as in the first scene, who has just handed to an aged woman a loaf of bread, receiving no payment but raising his right hand in benediction. The woman, dressed in a mauve gown and white veil, is cleverly and gracefully posed within a small doorway, and behind her is a room with an open door still farther back, through which flowering shrubs are seen; and in this inner room a ray of light glints on the floor. High on the top of the wall a large terra-cotta flower-vase is silhouetted against a blue sky, and at the left of this there is a narrow slit window.

“Cosimas and Damianus were two brothers, Arabians by birth, but they dwelt in Ægæ, a city of Cilicia. Their father having died while they were yet children, their pious mother, Theodora, brought them up with all diligence, and in the practice of every Christian virtue. Their charity was so great, that they not only lived in the greatest abstinence, distributing their goods to the infirm and poor, but they studied medicine and surgery, so that they might be able to prescribe for the sick, and relieve the sufferings of the wounded and infirm; and the blessing of God being on all their endeavors, they became the most learned and the most perfect physicians that the world had ever seen. They ministered to all who applied to them, whether rich or poor. Even to suffering animals they did not deny their aid, and they constantly refused all payment or recompense, exercising their art only for charity and for the love of God; and thus they spent their days. At length those wicked Emperors, Diocletian and Maximian, came to the throne, in whose time so many saints perished. Among them were the physicians, Cosimas and Damianus, who, professing themselves Christians, were seized by Lycias, the proconsul of Arabia and cast into prison. At first they were thrown into the sea, but an Angel saved them; and then they were cast into fire, but the fire refused to consume them; and then they were bound on two crosses and stoned, but of the stones flung at them, none reached them, but fell on those who threw them and many were killed. So the proconsul, believing that they were enchanters, commanded that they should be beheaded, which was done.” This Oriental legend, which is of great antiquity, was transplanted into Western Europe in the first ages of Christianity. The Emperor Justinian, having recovered, as he supposed, from a dangerous illness, by the intercession of these saints, erected a superb church in their honor. Among the Greeks Cosimas and Damianus succeeded to the worship and attributes of Æsculapius; and from their disinterested refusal of all pay or reward they are distinguished by the honorable title of Anargyres, which signifies moneyless, or without fees.

MADONNA DELLA STELLA.

This picture came directly from the Monastery of the Carmine Brethren in Florence to the present owner. It is painted in tempera on a panel 32⅝ × 25¼ inches. The Madonna, with head half turned towards the right, is standing at half length and holding the Holy Child very lovingly in her arms. She wears a dark-green, hooded mantle, with wide gold border and fastened across the breast with two narrow straps of gold embroidery. Under this is seen a bright crimson robe falling in tight, formal plaits from the neck. The sleeve of the right arm shows a gold embroidered band at the wrist. On the right shoulder of the mantle is embroidered a golden star (reminiscent of the Sienese decoration), from which the picture takes the name of Madonna della Stella. The head-dress, which permits a little of the blonde hair to be seen, is of a soft, white muslin, which is delicately folded and carried around the base of the long, slender neck. Above the head-dress is a very large golden nimbus with lines radiating from the centre. The Holy Child is firmly supported by both arms of the Virgin and rests His left foot on her right arm, while His right leg hangs down behind her wrist. The Holy Child is swathed in a drapery of purple hue and His head is also encircled by a golden halo. With His left hand He grasps the folds of His mother’s head-dress, where it falls upon her neck, and with His right He supports His chin in a very mature and contemplative way. The background is composed of a loosely hanging gold brocade of decorative pattern. The extravagant use of gold produces a warm and lustrous gleam and glow and the deep colors stand out from the background with great richness and beauty.

It is generally accepted that Lucrezia Buti, the young nun whom Fra Filippo Lippi stole from the Convent of Santa Margherita, served as the model for this Madonna and that the Infant Jesus is none other than Fra Filippino Lippi, the future painter. Comparison with the tondo in the Pitti Palace, representing the Madonna with Saints, in which Lucrezia Buti is known to appear, shows the same oval face, slender neck, expressive eyes, dilated nostrils, full lips, slightly dimpled chin, and wistful glance.

Fra Filippo Lippi is one of the strangest personalities in the history of art. He became a Carmelite monk from circumstance rather than choice; and nobody was ever less fitted to belong to Holy Orders than this gay, adventure-loving Florentine. “Lippi was very fond of good company,” Vasari notes, “and led a free and joyous life.” Fra Filippo Lippi presents a strange contrast to the saintly Fra Angelico, who was his contemporary and fellow-worker. Filippo Lippi, son of a butcher, was born in or about 1406, in a street behind the Carmine Church in Florence; and, being left an orphan, was cared for by an aunt, who took him at the age of eight to the Convent of Sta. Maria del Carmine and gave him to the Friars to rear. The Friars soon discovered the boy’s extraordinary talent for drawing, and, fortunately, encouraged it, sending him to study under Lorenzo Monaco.

At this time Masaccio was at work in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine Church, and young Lippi used to watch him with profound interest and delight. In 1421 Filippo Lippi became a Carmelite monk; but he was permitted to continue his painting and he executed many frescoes for church and cloister. In ten years’ time he left the monastery to give his whole life to his art. However, he always signed his pictures “Frater Philippus.” Though not a copyist, by any means, Fra Filippo Lippi shows in his works how much he admired and how much he learned from Masaccio, Masolino, Domenico Veneziano, and Fra Angelico.

Adventures of many kinds filled his life; for instance, there is a story that he was captured by Moorish pirates one day while sailing for pleasure, and taken to Barbary as a slave and that because he drew his master’s portrait so cleverly, he was given his freedom a year or so later. This—if it happened at all—happened in 1431–1434. About the last-named date Fra Filippo Lippi was employed by Cosimo de’ Medici, who took a great fancy to the lively Friar and was most indulgent to his pranks and misdemeanors, excusing everything he did because of his genius and his attractive personality. Fra Filippo Lippi decorated many churches, palaces, and villas for his patron. Among the first works that Lippi painted for the Medici Palace (now the Riccardi) were the Annunciation and St. John the Baptist with Six Other Saints (both in the National Gallery, London). Lippi’s most important picture in Florence is his Coronation of the Virgin.

“Lippi’s character, however, only affects his credit as a painter by accounting for the kind of success he achieved. He had, as was to be expected, no ears for the message which Donatello was at this time teaching, and consequently his pictures on religious subjects have an exceedingly mundane character. Nevertheless, the sweet seriousness of his Madonnas falls in no way short of those of Fra Angelico, and the faces of his children are full of a quaint, mischievous character which is delightful, while in both drawing and coloring he shows the immense advance which had now taken place in Painting. And it is here that Lippi’s true claim to fame lies. Masaccio, the only man who up to that time had found out the true methods of the art of Painting, had died too soon to be able to make known his discovery, except to the few who could visit Florence and the Brancacci Chapel. It was left for Lippi, the rough boy whom he had taught, to show the world Masaccio’s discovery. And Lippi did so. Vasari says: ‘Taught as he had been by Masaccio, he was a faithful follower of Masaccio’s style;’ and he adds that he followed the latter’s methods so faithfully, that it appeared that the spirit of Masaccio had entered Lippi’s body. Thus what Masaccio had done for the art of Painting is chiefly to be seen by a comparison of Lippi’s pictures with those of Masaccio’s immediate predecessors, the Giotteschi. Lippi’s principal picture in Florence is his Coronation of the Virgin painted for Cosimo and now in the Accademia delle Belle Arti; but his best work is considered to be his frescoes in the Cathedral at Prato painted between 1456 and 1465.

“It was not an easy thing to get any work out of Lippi. There is an amusing story of how, when he was painting this picture for Cosimo, the latter being at last in despair (owing to Lippi’s lazy ways) of ever seeing the picture finished, had him locked up in the room in the Medici Palace where it was being painted, declaring that he should not be let out until the work was done. Whereupon Lippi tied his bedclothes into a rope, let himself down from the window into the street and disappeared into the slums of Florence, not to be found again for many days.”[6]

Lippi’s drunkenness and his unscrupulous behavior brought him many times before the magistrates and on one occasion he was flogged for embezzlement. However, the Medici family always came to the rescue and helped him out.

In 1452 he was made Chaplain of San Niccolò de Fieri, Florence, and in 1456 Chaplain of Santa Margherita, Prato, and here again it was Cosimo de’ Medici, who obtained these posts for him. At Prato he painted some of his finest pictures. Requested by the Abbess of Sta. Margherita to paint a picture for the Chapel, the gay Friar, who was now over fifty, fell in love with a young nun of twenty-one, Lucrezia Buti, who had taken the vows two years previously. At the Festival of the Holy Girdle in 1456, Fra Filippo Lippi managed to carry off the pretty nun and take her to his house in the vicinity. The next year Filippino Lippi was born, who appears in the arms of Lucrezia Buti in the Madonna della Stella represented here. Two years later Lucrezia Buti re-entered the Convent; but she soon tired of it and returned to Fra Filippo Lippi. A charge of abduction was then brought against the painter, who again appealed to Cosimo de’ Medici; and, through the latter’s influence, Pope Pius II absolved monk and nun from their religious vows and declared them lawfully married.

“I laughed heartily when I heard of Fra Filippo’s escapade,” Giovanni de’ Medici, Cosimo’s younger son, remarked; and that remark shows exactly how the Medici felt towards Fra Filippo Lippi. They adored him as an artist and they did not take him seriously as a man.

About 1465 Fra Filippo Lippi left Prato and went to Spoleto, taking Lucrezia and his two children (there was now a daughter); and there, still under the patronage of the Medici, the energetic painter-monk produced a splendid series of frescoes depicting one of his favorite subjects, the Coronation of the Virgin. Fra Filippo was working on the Duomo at Spoleto when he died in 1469. Fra Filippo Lippi gains additional fame for having been the first master of Botticelli. His contemporaries—without dissent—regarded Fra Filippo Lippi as the “rarest master of the time.” Fra Filippo Lippi was one of the first to use the tondo form.

“His dreams were all of the earth and his thoughts never soared beyond the gladness and beauty of the natural world. He paints the merry, curly-headed boys whom he met in the streets of Florence as cherubs, takes his mistress as a model for his Madonnas, and peoples the court of heaven with fair maidens in rich attire and dainty head-gear. A thorough-going realist at heart, his naturalism differed wholly from that of his contemporaries, Paolo Uccello, or Andrea del Castagno. He never troubled his head with scientific problems, or new technical methods. The old tempera painting was good enough for him and he carried this form of art to the highest perfection, while at the same time he profited by all the advance which Masaccio and his followers had made, and gave a marked impulse to the new realism by the strong human element which he introduced in his works. His genial delight in all bright and pleasant things, in the daisies and the springtime, in rich ornament and glowing color, in splendid architecture and sunny landscapes, in lovely women and round baby faces, fitted him in especial manner to be the herald of that fuller and larger life which was dawning on the men and women of the Renaissance.”[7]

Fra Filippo Lippi’s son, Filippino Lippi (1457–1504), inherited his father’s talent and was trained by Botticelli. It was Lorenzo de’ Medici, who recommended to the Friars of the Carmine that they should employ Fra Filippo Lippi’s son to finish Masaccio’s frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel. Filippino did this to everyone’s satisfaction and in The Trial of St. Peter and St. Paul he introduced portraits of Antonio Pollaiuolo, Botticelli, and himself. Filippino achieved an enormous reputation and was beloved for his modesty and gentleness of character. As in the case of his father, the next generation of the Medici continued their patronage to a Lippi.

MADONNA AND CHILD.

In the charming picture represented here, on canvas transferred from panel (29 × 21 inches), which was formerly in the possession of Arnoldo Corsi in Florence and afterwards in the Collection of Mr. William Solomon in New York, the Madonna, seen at three-quarter length, is seated in a chair. She is turned slightly to the left and wears a red tunic edged with gold and a blue mantle. Over the white veil, which covers her temples and hides her ears, is folded a golden-brown head-dress that descends to her shoulders. Her head is encircled by a gold nimbus. She is gazing at the Holy Child in her lap with downcast eyes and pensive expression. The Holy Child, who is nude, wears a red coral necklace, from which a “charm” hangs. Around His head is a very decorative cruciform nimbus. In His right hand He holds a narrow piece of white drapery and He raises His left hand in a benediction in the Greek manner. The landscape in the background recedes gently towards a distant range of hills, showing scanty vegetation beneath a light-blue sky. Bernhard Berenson has pronounced this a very characteristic work of Baldovinetti’s middle years, painted before the pictures now in the Uffizi.

Alesso Baldovinetti, born in Florence in 1425, was a pupil of Domenico Veneziano and became a member of the Painters Guild in 1448, when he was twenty-three. His entry-book, a copy of which is preserved in the Archives of S. Maria Nuova, containing his accounts and orders, begins with the date 1449. One of his first commissions was to finish some panels begun by Fra Angelico for a credenza in the Medici Chapel of the Annunziata (see page 37), and some paintings on the doors of the vestry of Santa Annunziata (now in the Museum of San Marco), which also completed a series begun by Fra Angelico. Thenceforward he painted frescoes and altar-pieces, including an altar-piece representing the Annunciation for the Chapel of the Medici villa at Caffagiuolo (now in the Uffizi) and the fresco representing the Birth of Christ in Santa Annunziata (1460–1462). In 1470–1473 he was busy on the altar-piece in the San Ambrogio and the Trinita (now in the Accademia). Of the frescoes of Santa Trinità, on which he worked until 1497, only a small portion remains. Other unquestionable works by Baldovinetti are the Madonna and Saints (in the Uffizi) and a few pictures in private collections.

Baldovinetti also painted a great number of panels for private altars and he frequently turned from religious subjects to decorate marriage-chests and other sumptuous furniture. He also worked in mosaics, made cartoons for stained glass, and produced designs for intarsia,—all of which developed his delightful, decorative qualities.

Baldovinetti’s entire life seems to have been absorbed in painting. He married late. After the death of his wife, he entered the hospital of S. Paolo of the Third Order of St. Francis and bequeathed what few possessions he had to this house of charity. After his death in Florence in 1499, a large chest that belonged to him was opened; but the monks, instead of seeing the hoped-for gold, only found a book on mosaic-work and some drawings. “No one was really surprised,” says Vasari, who tells the story, “for Baldovinetti was so kind and courteous that he shared everything he possessed with his friends. Alesso was a very diligent artist, who tried to copy minutely every detail in Mother Nature. He loved painting landscapes exactly as they are, and you see in his pictures rivers, bridges, rocks, plants, fruit-trees, roads, fields, towns, castles, and an infinite number of similar objects. In his Nativity you can count the separate straws and knots in the thatched roof of the hut and you see the stones in the ruined house behind, worn away by rain, and the thick root of ivy growing up the wall is painted with so much accuracy that the green leaves are differently shaded on either side; and among the shepherds he introduced a snake crawling in the most natural manner along the wall.”

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY.

In profile to the right, with features clear-cut and strongly outlined against a light-green background, appears a young Florentine lady, whose dress and bearing proclaim her to be a patrician. She has not been as yet identified; but doubtless she was one of those elegant and gay Florentines whom we meet with in song and story. We are very safe to guess that she was a friend of the Medici and Tornabuoni group and played her part in the brilliant life of the period. Her dress, pink brocade with a floral pattern, is edged with white around the neck. Her hair is fancifully plaited with pale blue ribbons and partly covered with a head-dress of thin white gauze, which falls over the right ear on to her neck; and her hair is also decorated with a jewel set in pearls. According to the fashion of the time, her forehead and the nape of her neck are shaven; for the long line of the neck was considered of the greatest importance. It was also important to hold the head properly; and this young lady has certainly acquired the correct and noble carriage of the head.

An unpublished letter of Berenson exclaims enthusiastically: “This profile portrait of a Young Lady by Piero Pollaiuolo I believe to be one of the most delightful of the series of female profiles which, from Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano down to Botticelli and Amico di Sandro, glorifies the art of Florence during the Fifteenth Century. Few of them have survived to our own time. With the exception of one in the Poldi Collection at Milan, this is the most satisfactory of them all; for besides representing an extraordinarily attractive personality of the highest Florentine society of the time (as, indeed is confirmed by the dress and the jewels), it is a work of art of exquisite draughtsmanship, subtle modelling, and delicate, pure color.”

The painting in tempera is on a panel, 18 × 13 inches, and came from several important Collections,—that of the Conte Isolani Bologna; Baron Lazzaroni, Rome; and the late Mr. William Solomon, New York.

Mr. Berenson notes the fine draughtsmanship in this picture. Unusual drawing is to be expected from the brothers Pollaiuolo. Benvenuto Cellini called Antonio “the best draughtsman of his day in Florence” and tells us that all the goldsmiths worked from his designs; and, as Antonio trained his youngest brother, Piero, we cannot be surprised at the simple, direct, and commanding lines and these telling effects produced by such economical methods.

The real name of the talented brothers was Benci. Their father, Jacopo d’Antonio Benci, was nicknamed by his friends, Pollaiuolo, because his father kept a poulterer shop. Jacopo was a goldsmith and was employed by Lorenzo Ghiberti; and it is said that he made a remarkable quail on one of the Baptistery Gates.

Antonio (1432–1498) was apprenticed to Bartoluccio Ghiberti, a goldsmith, and soon achieved fame in Florence as a worker in jewelry and niello. Lorenzo Ghiberti called him to work on the Baptistery “Gates of Paradise” and the Bronze Doors. In 1459 he started to work independently and became renowned as a painter, sculptor, and master goldsmith. His bottega near the Ponte Vecchio was the most popular workshop in Florence; and here he remained until he went to Rome in 1484. Piero Pollaiuolo helped Antonio in his work and was also very versatile. Engravings, drawings, niello, sculpture, and painting, besides a vast amount of gold-work, silver-work, and bronze-work prove these men to be as industrious as they were talented. They also followed Alesso Baldovinetti in trying out new oil glazes and varnishes. In 1460 the Pollaiuoli painted in the Medici Palace, and about the same time executed the six life-sized Virtues for the Tribunal of the Mercatanzia. In 1471 Piero painted a portrait of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, who was visiting Florence; and this portrait, which hung for many years in the Medici Palace, is now in the Uffizi. Piero’s fresco of St. Christopher, painted at San Miniato outside the gates, is considered by most authorities to be the same St. Christopher now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Piero also painted a very fine Annunciation (now in the Berlin Gallery), which has a view of Florence and the Val d’Arno through the open windows and which is remarkable for its Renaissance architecture; for the profusion of pearls and other jewels adorning the Virgin’s chair and the robes of the Angels; and for three Cherubs playing the lute, viol, and organ.

In 1489 Antonio was called to Rome by Pope Innocent VIII to make the bronze tomb of Sixtus IV, and a monument for himself in St. Peter’s. He was joined by Piero. The Pollaiuoli never saw Florence again; for, on account of the raging Plague, no travellers were allowed to come within twenty miles of Florence. Piero died in 1496 and Antonio in 1498; and at the request of the latter he was buried in the same tomb with Piero in the church of S. Pietro in Vincula.

The Pollaiuoli were closely associated with Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Ghiberti, and Verrocchio.

GIULIANO DE’ MEDICI.

This proud, intellectual, refined, and cold face is painted almost in profile; but, notwithstanding that we see only a part of the face, we seem to see it all. Never did painter achieve a more complete presentation of personality and of character. Moreover, Botticelli has painted the whole of Florentine Society in this portrait. And with what amazingly simple means! There is practically no costume,—a black doublet, giving a glimpse of a red tunic below, and a severe white linen band doing duty for a collar. Even the background is neutral!

The simplicity of presentation and the economy of line are almost Japanese in their severity. The skillful handling is almost Oriental, too. Nothing seems to have been done here for effect,—yet what effect is here! There is almost no color; and the hair, too, which falls to the neck, is black. If we did not know that Giuliano de’ Medici was a dashing young Florentine of high mettle and full of the zest of life, we might easily mistake him for a priest.

The picture, painted on wood (21 × 13½ inches), gives us the impression of a life-size portrait. It was formerly in the Collection of Conte Procolo Isolani, in Bologna.

Giuliano de’ Medici was one of the most romantic characters in history; and the tragedy that cut the thread of his life at the age of twenty-five adds no little to the romantic appeal he makes to us to-day. Yet even at this age, he had so perfected himself in all the accomplishments that belonged to a gentleman of the Fifteenth Century that he stands as the very type of the elegant young man of his period. Giuliano was, like his brother, Lorenzo, proficient in the arts, a lover of pictures, music, and poetry; he wrote charming love-songs and other lyrical verse; he was intellectual and witty and talked extremely well; and he was a brilliant jouster and a well-trained all-round athlete and devoted to the chase. For all these things the Florentines admired him; but they loved him for his character, his high-mindedness, and his courtesy. He adored his brother; and Lorenzo, who was far from handsome, had no jealousy for the admiration that his younger brother inspired. The terrible murder of this public idol at High Mass in the Cathedral first shocked and then grieved the entire community. The grief manifested at the great public funeral in the church of the Medici family, San Lorenzo, was violent and sincere, for Giuliano de’ Medici was the beloved of both high and low.

In his book, The Medici, Col. Young writes:

“Giuliano de’ Medici, the youngest of the five children of Piero il Gottoso and Lucrezia Tornabuoni, was, unlike his brother Lorenzo, exceedingly good-looking; he was gifted with considerable abilities, and for his many endearing qualities was greatly beloved, not only in his own family but also by the people of Florence. Before his early death he had already shown on several occasions that he possessed plenty of political capacity and could give valuable advice to his brother.

“The relations which existed between these two brothers is one of the pleasantest things in the history of the Medici. At that epoch jealousy between brothers placed in such a position as Lorenzo and Giuliano were was the normal state of things. That it was entirely absent in their case speaks well for both of them.

“Giuliano was twenty-five at the time of his death. He left an illegitimate son, born just at that time. Lorenzo took the child and brought him up with his own sons; and this child became in the next generation the well-known Giulio de’ Medici, afterwards Clement VIII.”

Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi was born in Florence in 1444, the son of a prosperous tanner who had four sons, the eldest of whom, Giovanni, was called “Bottecello” from the sign of a barrel which hung over his shop, and which name was given to all the other members of the family. Sandro Botticelli, like so many other Florentine painters began life as a goldsmith. Then he was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi, who was, of course, able to hand on to him the old Giottesque tradition. Botticelli next fell under the influence of the Pollaiuoli, with whom he worked. It was not long, however, before the young painter began to exhibit his originality.