CHILD WITH ANGELS AND SAINTS.
(From the Convent of the Osservanza.)]

We are even less inclined to endorse the opinion of Rio in regard to
the date of the painting from the Annalena Convent. The internal
organization of the convent was only regulated by a bull of Pope
Nicholas V. after 1450, so there is probably no connection between the
internal establishment of the convent and the Commission for the
picture.

The convent (it is well to remember) was founded in 1453, but the
religious intentions of Anna Elena Malatesta met with no slight
resistance, and it was not till 1455, that Pope Calixtus III. conceded
her permission to "build in her house a public oratory in which mass
should be celebrated and the divine Offices performed." We cannot then
admit that the picture was specially painted for the convent named[56]
after that saintly lady. When one reflects that Anna Elena Malatesta,
foundress of the monastery, was educated in the house of Attilio di
Vieri de' Medici, and was by Cosimo Pater Patriae married to Baldaccio
of Anghiari, it is not unlikely that the picture had been a commission
from Cosimo, and that when Annalena was left a widow, and took the
vows in 1441, it was offered by him to the convent, to which the sad
widow had consecrated all her care. It is the more probable, that it
was painted for the Medici, because the two patron saints of their
house are represented in it.

SS. Cosmo and Damian only appear in the pictures painted by Fra
Angelico in Florence, probably in recognition of the benefits bestowed
by Cosimo on the monks of San Marco; moreover, we do not think the
work could have been done at Fiesole after the first visit to Rome in
1452, because the figures, weak in chiaroscuro, are still treated as
if they were enlarged miniatures, and do not show the character of his
later works. On the other hand the picture of the Osservanza in
Mugello displays the whole power of the artist, and may be compared,
as Rio says, to the panel at San Marco both in the character of the
figures and the larger style of treatment.

Vasari cites other works which have unfortunately been dispersed or
destroyed, among which were an altar-piece in the Certosa at Florence,
representing the "Virgin and Child," with some angels below, and at
the sides St. Laurence, St. Zenobi, and St. Benedict; the "Coronation
of the Madonna," once in the lunette of the Acciajoli chapel: another
with the "Virgin and two saints," painted "co