panel in the midst of the angelic host relieved upon a golden background. There are two hundred and sixty-six figures, no two of which are alike. On Christ's right are the Seraphim in red, on his left are the Cherubim in blue. The angel choirs are exquisite.

"With the flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, and the sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of many suns upon a sounding sea, listening in the pauses of alternate song for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the answering of psaltery and cymbal, throughout the endless deep, and from all the star shores of heaven."-(R.)

One of the most characteristic and beautiful examples of Florentine Art is the Virgin Adoring the Infant Christ, with an Angel standing on each side of her. It is variously attributed to the School of Verrocchio, and to A. Pollaiuolo.

"It shows the most delicate appreciation of the beauty of the human body, especially in the hands and the heads of the angels. Hardly elsewhere shall we find hands so refined in modelling and so subtle in their curves, or faces of so sweet and childlike a loveliness. In the presence of pictures of so rare a quality, one does not need the authority of a great name to stimulate admiration. The perfection of the execution of this beautiful picture, in which complete finish of the most delicate detail is achieved without a sense of over-elaboration, or difficulty, betrays a hand and eye almost as fastidious and highly trained as Leonardo's.”—(C. M.)

Compare this with the Madonna and Child, by Lorenzo di Credi, a pupil of Verrocchio.

The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, by. Pollaiuolo, is one of the first pictures in which the human form is studied for its own sake.

"A remarkable and admirably executed work, with numerous horses, many undraped figures, and singularly beautiful foreshortenings. The painting has been more extolled than any other ever executed by Antonio. He has evidently copied nature to the utmost of his power, as we perceive more particularly in one of the archers, who, bending towards the earth, and resting his weapon against his breast, is employing all the force of a strong arm to prepare it for action; the veins are swelling, the muscles strained, and the man holds his breath as he applies all his strength to the effort.”—(V.)

Signorelli's Circumcision of Christ is notable for its stately architecture, and the fine grouping of the figures.

This also is considered a wonderfully beautiful picture; but the Child, having been injured by the damp, was repaired by Sodoma, whereby the beauty was much diminished."-(V.)

The pictures by Botticelli reveal many sides of his genius. The largest is the Assumption of the Virgin.

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Original and grand in its conception, the wide expanse of sky being filled with great zones of the angelic hierarchy, and all the company of heaven, while below, and behind the figures of the Apostles who stand round the Virgin's tomb, we see the valley of the Arno, with the city of Florence and another town. The wonderful energy of the angels and the boldness of the design attest the invention of Botticelli." (C. M.)

The Nativity was painted thirty years later.

"In this picture we see that intensity of feeling, which is the peculiar characteristic of Botticelli, strained to its highest pitch. The fervour of the still Madonna, as she kneels before the Child; the extraordinary nervous tension which the artist has managed to suggest in the seated figure of Joseph; the rapture of the angels below at meet

ing their redeemed friends; the ardour of the angels at the sides, who introduce the awestricken shepherds and kings; and, finally, the wild ecstasy of the angels above as they dance around the throne, present such a picture of highly wrought emotion as even Botticelli himself has never equalled."-(C. M.)

Mars and Venus was probably intended as the decoration of a doorway for one of the Medici palaces. In Venus we may see a likeness of Simonetta. She half reclines in a graceful attitude, the drapery sweeping about her in rich folds. Mars lies asleep. Little Satyrs play with his armour, and one of them is blowing a shell in his ear to arouse him.

"How he revelled in the soft wavy lines of their curlyhaired little flanks, in the curves of their baby arms entwined at intervals round the straight shaft of the hero's spear. Their gleeful little faces faintly recall some of Fra Filippo's children's heads; and there is a distinct reminiscence of Botticelli's Pollaiuolesque training in the admirable foreshortening of the warrior's face. The colouring of this panel is in the pale, cold tints that Botticelli always employed for his decorative work, the darkness of the myrtles in the background being carefully calculated to throw up the lines of the lady's draperies and the contour of the nude figure."-(A. S.)

Among mythological pictures the Death of Procris, by Piero di Cosimo, is notable.

In creating his Satyr, the painter has not had recourse to any antique bas-relief, but has imagined for himself a being half human, half bestial, and yet wholly real; nor has he portrayed in Procris a nymph of Greek form, but a girl of Florence. The strange animals and gaudy flowers introduced into the landscape background further remove the subject from the sphere of classic treatment. Florentine realism and quaint fancy being thus curiously blended, the artistic result may be profitably studied for the light it throws upon the so-called Paganism of the earlier Renaissance.”—(J. A. S.)