s holding three of the happiest pictures
ever painted. The first is the Adoration of the Magi, by Gentile
da Fabriano, an artist of whom one sees too little. His full
name was Gentile di Niccolo di Giovanni Massi, and he was born
at Fabriano between 1360 and 1370, some twenty years before Fra
Angelico. According to Vasari he was Fra Angelico's master, but
that is now considered doubtful, and yet the three little scenes
from the life of Christ in the predella of this picture are nearer
Fra Angelico in spirit and charm than any, not by a follower, that I
have seen. Gentile did much work at Venice before he came to Florence,
in 1422, and this picture, which is considered his masterpiece, was
painted in 1423 for S. Trinita. He died four years later. Gentile
was charming rather than great, and to this work might be applied
Ruskin's sarcastic description of poor Ghirlandaio's frescoes, that
they are mere goldsmith's work; and yet it is much more, for it has
gaiety and sweetness and the nice thoughtfulness that made the Child a
real child, interested like a child in the bald head of the kneeling
mage; while the predella is not to be excelled in its modest, tender
beauty by any in Florence; and predellas, I may remark again, should
never be overlooked, strong as the tendency is to miss them. Many
a painter has failed in the large space or made only a perfunctory
success, but in the small has achieved real feeling. Gentile's Holy
Family on its way to Egypt is never to be forgotten. Not so radiant
as Fra Angelico's, in the room we have visited out of due course,
but as charming in its own manner--both in personages and landscape;
while the city to which Joseph leads the donkey (again without reins)
is the most perfect thing out of fairyland.

Ghirlandaio's picture, which is the neighbour of Gentile's, is as
a whole nearer life and one of his most attractive works. It is,
I think, excelled only by his very similar Adoration of the Magi
at the Spedale degli Innocenti, which, however, it is difficult to
see; and it is far beyond the examples at the Uffizi, which are too
hot. Of the life of this artist, who was Michelangelo's master, I
shall speak in the chapter on S. Maria Novella. This picture, which
represents the Adoration of the Shepherds, was painted in 1485, when
the artist was thirty-six. It is essentially pleasant: a religious
picture on the sunny side. The Child is the soul of babyish content,
equally amused with its thumb