o scope except by putting S.
Jerome's hat in a new place, or introducing a couple of goldfinches. One
likes to think of the pleasure with which Gozzoli received his
commission one morning, perhaps from Cosimo de' Medici himself, for whom
his master was adorning a cell in the Convent of San Marco, recently
rebuilt at the great man's expense. Did he know the legend of Helen of
Troy, or had he to seek the advice of some scholar like Nicolli or
Poggio for the right tradition? He seems, indeed, to have been rather
mixed in his ideas on the subject. Did he consult Brunellesco in the
construction of his Greek Temple, or Donatello or Ghiberti for the
statue inside? Whence came that wonderful landscape with its mountains
and cypress trees and strange-shaped ships? From his imagination, or
from some old missal or choir-book illumination? At all events, pleasure
evidently went to the making of it, for his fancy had full scope. His
costumes he adopted frankly from those of his day, adding some features
in the way of strange headgear, much like those in Fra Angelico's
_Adoration_ (in which he possibly had a hand), to give an Eastern colour
to the group of boyish heroes on the left; not knowing or considering
that the robes in which he was accustomed to drape his angels were much
nearer to, were indeed derived from, the costume of the Greeks. For his
ideal of female beauty he seems to have been satisfied with his own
taste. One can scarcely imagine a face or figure much less classical
than that of the blonde with the _retrousse_ nose (presumably Helen
herself), who is riding so complacently on the neck of the long-legged
Italian in the centre. The figures in the Temple are of a finer type,
and the lady in the sweeping robe, with the long sleeves, who turns her
back to us, has a simple dignity which reminds one less of Gozzoli's
master than of Lippo Lippi or Masaccio, whose frescoes in the Carmine
he, in common with all other artists, had doubtless studied. There is
nothing so classical or so natural in the picture as the beautiful
little bare-legged boy that is running away in the foreground. This
little bright panel--so gay, so naive, so ignorant, and withal so
charming--is of importance in the history of art as illustrated in the
National Gallery. It is the first in which the artist has given full
play to his imagination, and entered the romantic world of classic
legend, and, with one exception, the first which is purely secular in