Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-97), the most celebrated pupil of Fra Angelico, is seen at his best in his great decorative frescos which adorn the four walls of a room in the Riccardi Palace in Florence. This room, which had formerly been the Chapel of the Medici, has its walls completely painted over with the processional subject, the “Journey of the Magi,” by Gozzoli, when he was about forty years old. It is one of the best, if not the best, preserved fresco paintings in Florence. The colouring is very rich and warm in glowing tones, as in the case of all Gozzoli’s work which has remained uninjured. The extremely rich effect is considerably heightened by the free use of gold on the embroideries of the principal figures, and on the horse-trappings. The work contains many portraits of the principal people of the time, among which are those of Cosimo de Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, and that of the artist himself. The kings, in sumptuous apparel, are represented on horseback, attended by lords, squires, retainers and servants, all travelling slowly and with much solemnity, through a beautiful country. A hunting party occupies the left wall, looking towards the window, where some leopards and hawks, used for hunting, are admirably drawn and painted. On the recessed wall surrounding the window the scene represented is Paradise, or the Garden of Heaven, in which many angels are in prayer, and others soaring in the clouds. The fine condition of these frescos presents a great contrast to the decayed and almost obliterated paintings executed by Gozzoli on the walls of the Campo Santa at Pisa. Very little, indeed, except slight traces, now remains of the latter paintings, but the cause of their decay is not far to seek. It is true that all the paintings on the walls of the Campo Santa have always been exposed to the open air, but the real cause of the disintegration of the Gozzoli paintings in this place is from their being painted in tempera, or fresco-secco, and not, as in the case of the Riccardi frescos, in veritable or buon-fresco. The Campo Santa frescos by Gozzoli represent scenes from the history of the Old Testament, from the time of Noah to the Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon. They were painted between 1469 and 1485, when the artist was in the zenith of his powers, and from what remains of them we can easily imagine them to have been the finest of any works executed by this great nature-loving artist. An Italian artist who was engaged in repairing the more decayed

portions of Gozzoli’s wall paintings in the Campo Santa, in the summer of 1908, informed the writer that nearly all the remaining colours on these paintings were in a powdery state on the surface of the wall, and could easily be dusted off. This rarely happens in the case of paintings which have been executed in buon or veritable fresco, and there is doubt that the chief cause of decay and of the faded appearance of many of the old Italian frescos is due to the fact that they were either executed in tempera, or in the fresco-secco method, or that they were begun in buon-fresco and finished afterwards with glazings and opaque touches of tempera colour. Many of Simon Memmi’s frescos in the Spanish Chapel, in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, were repainted or “restored” about one hundred years after his death, and Ruskin has stated that some of the restorer’s over-painting has since fallen away, revealing the very pure original work underneath.

Pietro Vanucci, better known as Pietro Perugino (1446-1524), was one of the most important artists of the Umbrian school of painting, and was Raffaelle’s early instructor. He painted many frescos in Florence, where he lived and worked for about fourteen years, and where he acquired much of the Florentine manner of design and painting. One of his most important works in Florence is the great fresco of the “Crucifixion,” with saints standing around the foot of the cross, which he painted in three compartments on the wall of the chapter-house of the Church of St. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, in the Via Colona. The design and pose of the figures in this fresco are very characteristic of Perugino’s manner, which may be seen in the upcast and wistful expression of the eyes, the pose of the heads, and devout attitudes of his standing figures. The illustrations of the two heads from this fresco, here given, are in the above respects very typical of Perugino’s work; they also admirably show his method of handling, as well as the brush-marks of the fresco. The light touches in the beard and hair of the male head are later reinforcements, but with this exception, the whole of the painting in these heads is quite likely to be the genuine work of Perugino. Another fresco in Florence, known as the “Cenacolo di Foligno,” is ascribed to Perugino; it is in the refectory of the old convent of St. Onofrio, in the Via Faenza.

This artist painted some important frescos in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, at Rome, some of which are still in existence, namely, the “Baptism of Christ,” and the “Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter.” It is recorded that he had also painted a fresco on the wall at the back of the altar in this chapel, but that it was destroyed in order to make way for Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment.” In those palmy days of great artistic activity it was evident that some difficulty was experienced in finding sufficient wall space on which the painters of

that time might execute their numerous commissions, when, as we see, masterpieces had to be destroyed to make room for still greater works. If we contrast those spacious days of art with those of our own time and in our own country, it affords us food for some reflection of a mournful kind to find there are acres of blank spaces on the walls of our churches and public buildings, and capable enough artists in our midst who might be employed to decorate these barren spaces, but nobody, or no Government, public-spirited enough to entrust modern artists with commissions to execute such works.