ents, or holding a canopy over the Virgin. Very few of
his works are out of Italy; the most are in Florence, especially in the
Pitti Palace. His two greatest works are the Madonna della Misericordia,
or the Madonna of Mercy, at Lucca, where the Virgin stands with
outstretched arms pleading for the suppliants, whom she shelters under
the canopy, and who look to her as she looks to her Son,--and the grand
single figure of St Mark, with his Gospel in his hand, in the Pitti
Palace, Florence. Sir David Wilkie said of the Madonna of Mercy, 'that
it contained the merits of Raphael, of Titian, of Rembrandt, and of
Rubens.'

Andrea Vanucchi, commonly called Andrea del Sarto, from the occupation
of his father, who was a tailor (in Italian, _sarto_), was born at
Florence in 1488. He was first a goldsmith, but soon turned painter,
winning early the commendatory title of 'Andrea senza errori,' or
'Andrea the Faultless.' His life is a miserable and tragic history. In
the early flush of his genius and industry, with its just crown of fame
and success, he conceived a passion for a beautiful but worthless woman,
whom, in spite of the opposition of his friends, he married. She
rendered his home degraded and wretched, and his friends and scholars
fell off from him. In disgust he quitted Florence, and entered the
service of Francis I, of France; but his wife, for whom his regard was a
desperate infatuation, imperiously summoned him back to Florence, to
which he returned, bringing with him a large sum of money, entrusted to
him by the king for the purchase of works of art. Instigated by his
wife, Andrea del Sarto used this money for his, or rather her, purposes,
and dared not return to France. Even in his native Florence he was
loaded with reproach and shame. He died of the plague at the age of
fifty-five years, according to tradition, plundered and abandoned in his
extremity by the base woman for whom he had sacrificed principle and
honour. We may read the grievous story of Andrea del Sarto, written by
one of the greatest of England's modern poets.

As may be imagined, Andrea del Sarto's excellence lay in the charm of
his execution. His works were deficient in earnestness and high feeling,
and some will have it, that, evilly haunted as he was, he perpetually
painted in his Madonnas the beautiful but base-souled face of the woman
who ruined him. Andrea del Sarto's best works are in Florence,
particularly in the cloisters of the convent of