llous frescoes.

[Illustration: BIRTH, PREACHING AND MIRACLES OF ST. NICHOLAS.
(Vatican, Rome.)]

[Illustration: THE DEATH OF ST. NICHOLAS. (Pinacoteca, Perugia.)]

This would actually signify little. As the picture which is said to
have been painted for the church of Sant' Andrea at Brescia was
naturally done at Fiesole, this one for Perugia might well have been
executed at Florence. But though it recalls the most characteristic
works of the artist and, for liveliness of colour and accurate study
of form, may be considered one of his most remarkable works, we have
no hesitation in ascribing it to his first artistic period. In both
these altar-pieces the grouping of the figures is still faithful to
Giottesque tradition; it was only later, i. e. when Fra Angelico had
felt the artistic influences developing around him, that he placed the
figures in one picture on different levels, to make a circle round the
Mother of Christ.

The type of the Virgin herself in this Perugian picture is similar to
that of the Cortona panel; they both have the eyes wide apart, a
short, receding chin, and small mouth; characteristics which are also
seen in the angels behind the Virgin's throne in the San Domenico
picture at Cortona. From an architectural view the throne has here a
much more antique shape than in his later designs, where Renaissance
forms predominate. As to the picture at Perugia it has been so
restored and arbitrarily put together after the panel was divided,
that it affords no serious proof of authenticity.

We must therefore conclude that the Perugian one was painted before
1433, for could we possibly admit (as Padre Bottonio wills it) that it
was done in 1437, that is only a year before the celebrated painting
for the church of San Marco? And seeing that when the Dominicans again
obtained possession of their own convent and returned to Fiesole
neither Fra Angelico nor his brother Fra Benedetto were among them, we
may reasonably suppose that Angelico was then at Perugia, painting the
altar-piece for the Guidalotti Chapel; and that he only returned to
Florence when he had finished that work, which we may date later than
the panel still to be admired at Cortona.

These are the only works known to have been painted by him while he
and his brethren had left their beloved Fiesole hills to seek peace
and tranquillity in Umbria,--the only records of that period of
voluntary exile.

[Illustration: VIRGIN OF THE ANNUNCIATION