h is said to be Christian. I have seen
piety and purity only in the images of Fra Angelico, although they
are very pretty. The rest, those figures of Virgins and angels, are
voluptuous, caressing, and at times perversely ingenuous. What is there
religious in those young Magian kings, handsome as women; in that Saint
Sebastian, brilliant with youth, who seems merely the dolorous Bacchus
of Christianity?"

Dechartre replied that he thought as she did, and that they must be
right, she and he; since Savonarola was of the same opinion, and,
finding no piety in any work of art, wished to burn them all.

"There were at Florence, in the time of the superb Manfred, who was half
a Mussulman, men who were said to be of the sect of Epicurus, and who
sought for arguments against the existence of God. Guido Cavalcanti
disdained the ignorant folk who believed in the immortality of the soul.
The following phrase by him was quoted: 'The death of man is exactly
similar to that of brutes.' Later, when antique beauty was excavated
from ruins, the Christian style of art seemed sad. The painters that
worked in the churches and cloisters were neither devout nor chaste.
Perugino was an atheist, and did not conceal it."

"Yes," said Miss Bell; "but it was said that his head was hard, and that
celestial truths, could not penetrate his thick cranium. He was harsh
and avaricious, and quite embedded in material interests. He thought
only of buying houses."

Professor Arrighi defended Pietro Vanucci of Perugia.

"He was," he said, "an honest man. And the prior of the Gesuati of
Florence was wrong to mistrust him. That monk practised the art
of manufacturing ultramarine blue by crushing stones of burned
lapis-lazuli. Ultramarine was then worth its weight in gold; and the
prior, who doubtless had a secret, esteemed it more precious than rubies
or sapphires. He asked Pietro Vanucci to decorate the two cloisters of
his convent, and he expected marvels, less from the skilfulness of the
master than from the beauty of that ultramarine in the skies. During
all the time that the painter worked in the cloisters at the history
of Jesus Christ, the prior kept by his side and presented to him the
precious powder in a bag which he never quitted. Pietro took from it,
under the saintly man's eyes, the quantity he needed, and dipped his
brush, loaded with color, in a cupful of water, before rubbing the wall
with it. He used in that manner a great quantity of th