ek their inspiration in the life of Christ. One cannot imagine Fra
Angelico's existence in a pagan country. Look, in No. 236, at the six
radiant and rapturous angels clustering above the manger. Was there
ever anything prettier? But I am not sure that I do not most covet
No. 250, Christ crucified and two saints, and No. 251, the Coronation
of the Virgin, for their beauty of light.

In the photographs No. 246--a Deposition--is unusually striking,
but in the original, although beautiful, it is far less radiant than
usual with this painter. It has, however, such feeling as to make it
especially memorable among the many treatments of this subject. What
is generally considered the most important work in this room is the
Last Judgment, which is certainly extraordinarily interesting, and in
the hierarchy of heaven and the company of the blest Fra Angelico is
in a very acceptable mood. The benignant Christ Who divides the sheep
and the goats; the healthy ripe-lipped Saints and Fathers who assist
at the tribunal and have never a line of age or experience on their
blooming cheeks; the monks and nuns, just risen from their graves, who
embrace each other in the meads of paradise with such fervour--these
have much of the charm of little flowers. But in delineating the damned
the painter is in strange country. It was a subject of which he knew
nothing, and the introduction among them of monks of the rival order
of S. Francis is mere party politics and a blot.

There are two other rooms here, but Fra Angelico spoils us for
them. Four panels by another Frate, but less radiant, Lippo Lippi, are
remarkable, particularly the figure of the Virgin in the Annunciation;
and there is a curious series of scenes entitled "L'Albero della
Croce," by an Ignoto of the fourteenth century, with a Christ crucified
in the midst and all Scripture in medallions around him, the tragedy of
Adam and Eve at the foot (mutilated by some chaste pedant) being very
quaint. And in Angelico's rooms there is a little, modest Annunciation
by one of his school--No. 256--which shows what a good influence he
was, and to which the eye returns and returns. Here also, on easels,
are two portraits of Vallombrosan monks by Fra Bartolommeo, serene,
and very sympathetically painted, which cause one to regret the
deterioration in Italian ecclesiastic physiognomy; and Andrea del
Sarto's two pretty angels, which one so often finds in reproduction,
are here too.

Let us now ente