ose grief is profound. One other good Lorenzo is here, an "Adoration
of the Magi," No. 39, a little out of drawing but full of life.

But for most people the glory of the room is not Lorenzo the Monk,
but Brother Giovanni of Fiesole, known ever more as Beato, or Fra,
Angelico. Of that most adoring and most adorable of painters I say much
in the chapter on the Accademia, where he is very fully represented,
and it might perhaps be well to turn to those pages (227-230) and read
here, on our first sight of his genius, what is said. Two Angelicos are
in this room--the great triptych, opposite the chief Lorenzo, and the
"Crowning of the Virgin," on an easel. The triptych is as much copied
as any picture in the gallery, not, however, for its principal figures,
but for the border of twelve angels round the centre panel. Angelico's
benignancy and sweetness are here, but it is not the equal of the
"Coronation," which is a blaze of pious fervour and glory. The group
of saints on the right is very charming; but we are to be more pleased
by this radiant hand when we reach the Accademia. Already, however,
we have learned his love of blue. Another altar-piece with a subtle
quality of its own is the early Annunciation by Simone Martini of
Siena (1285-1344) and Lippo Memmi, his brother (d. 1357), in which
the angel speaks his golden words across the picture through a vase
of lilies, and the Virgin receives them shrinkingly. It is all very
primitive, but it has great attraction, and it is interesting to
think that the picture must be getting on for six hundred years of
age. This Simone was a pupil of Giotto and the painter of a portrait
of Petrarch's Laura, now preserved in the Laurentian library, which
earned him two sonnets of eulogy. It is also two Sienese painters
who have made the gayest thing in this room, the predella, No. 1304,
by Neroccio di Siena (1447-1500) and Francesco di Giorgio di Siena
(1439-1502), containing scenes in the life of S. Benedetto. Neroccio
did the landscape and figures; the other the architecture, and very
fine it is. Another delightful predella is that by Benozzo Gozzoli
(1420-1498), Fra Angelico's pupil, whom we have seen at the Riccardi
palace. Gozzoli's predella is No. 1302. Finally, look at No. 64,
which shows how prettily certain imitators of Fra Angelico could paint.

After the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco let us enter the first Tuscan
room. The draughtsmanship of the great Last Judgment fresco by Fra
Bart