colouring. The semblance of archaism disappears,
and leaves a vision of pure beauty, delicate and spiritual. The
collection to which I have alluded was made some years ago, when access
to the wall-paintings of Italy for the purpose of tracing was still
possible. It includes nearly the whole of Lorenzetti's work in the Sala
della Pace, much of Giotto, the Gozzoli frescoes at S. Gemignano,
frescoes of the Veronese masters and of the Paduan Baptistery, a great
deal of Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Luini, Gaudenzio Ferrari,
Pinturicchio, Masolino, &c. The earliest masters of Arezzo, Pisa, Siena,
Urbino are copiously illustrated, while few burghs or hamlets of the
Tuscan and Umbrian districts have been left unvisited.

[130] See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. i. pp. 445-451, for a discussion
of the question. They incline to the authorship of Pietro and Ambrogio
Lorenzetti. But the last Florentine edition of Vasari renders this
opinion doubtful.

[131]
Ed una donna involta in veste negra,
Con un furor qual io non so se mai
Al tempo de' giganti fosse a Flegra.
_Trionfo della Morte_, cap. i. 31.

[132] On a scroll above these wretches is written this legend:--

Dacche prosperitade ci ha lasciati,
O morte, medicina d'ogni pena,
Deh vieni a darne omai l'ultima cena.

[133] This might be used as an argument against the Lorenzetti
hypothesis; for their work at Siena is eminently beautiful.

[134] The attitude and the eyes of this archangel have an imaginative
potency beyond that of any other motive used by any painter to suggest
the terror of the _Dies Irae_. Simplicity and truth of vision in the
artist have here touched the very summit of intense dramatic
presentation.

[135] The "Triumph of S. Thomas Aquinas," in this cloister-chapel, has
long been declared the work of Taddeo Gaddi. "The Triumph of the Church
Militant," and the "Consecration of S. Dominic," used to be ascribed, on
the faith of Vasari, to Simone Martini of Siena. Independently of its
main subject, this vast wall-painting is specially interesting on account
of its portraits. The work has a decidedly Sienese character; but recent
critics are inclined to assign it to a certain Andrea, of Florence. See
Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. ii. p. 89. The same critics doubt the hand
of Taddeo Gaddi in the "Triumph of S. Thomas," vol. i. p. 374, and remark
that "these productions of the art of the fourteenth century are, indeed,
s