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It might have been any ordinary Fra Girolamo, who had nothing worse to confess than thinking of wrong things when he was singing in coro, or feeling a spiteful joy when Fra Benedetto dropped the ink over his own miniatures in the breviary he was illuminating who had no higher thought than that of climbing safely into Paradise up the narrow ladder of prayer, fasting, and obedience.
But when the placid face of his friend met his, bathed in the fresh benediction of his altar service new each morning and never omitted he forgot the horror with which he had been reasoning that Fra Paolo was hastening the curse upon Venice.
Fra Bonaventura wished you should be informed of his merits, that you should hear of his fasts and austerities and the whole year's silence he once condemned himself to endure.
The growth which began with Niccolò of Pisa and with Cimabue, which advanced through Giotto and his school, Perugino and Pinturicchio, Piero della Francesca and Signorelli, Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli, the Ghirlandajo brothers, the Lippi and Botticelli, effloresced in Michelangelo, leaving nothing for aftercomers but manneristic imitation.
It has more of sophistication than most: the Virgin not only recognizes the honour, but the doom, which the painter himself foreshadows in the predella, where Christ is seen rising from the grave. None of Fra Angelico's simple radiance here, and none of Fra Lippo Lippi's glorified matter-of-fact. Here is tragedy. The painting of the Virgin's head-dress is again marvellous.
Above we see him precipitated head-downwards from heaven by an angel surrounded by fiery rays, which strike death to the army beneath. In sombre black, and standing outside the scene, Signorelli has painted the portrait of himself, with fingers interlaced and firmly-planted feet, and behind, the milder, but still gloomy figure of Fra Angelico.
If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the poet's apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of peace, but also an interesting record of the destiny which presided over the first great work of literary art in a distinctly modern language.
Both were wont to throw a light veil of humor over very serious discussions. Both could use, with great effect, curt, caustic description: Jefferson's letter to Governor Langdon satirizing the crowned heads of Europe, as he had seen them, has a worthy pendant in Fra Paolo's pictures of sundry representatives of the Vatican.
Fra Bartolommeo, with more analysis, works thoughtfully ... he ascends from the effect to the cause, and in created things contemplates a reflection of spiritual beauty." It is true the Dominican order has been as great a patron of arts as the Franciscan of literature. It united with Niccolo Pisano to give form to national architecture. It had sculptors, miniaturists, and glass painters.
Fra Diavolo, Beppo, Lallah Rookh, The Lady of the Lions, and The Colleen Bawn, were among the burlesques that he produced, and with those he was the pioneer. Engagements were filled by Mr. and Mrs. Florence, at the outset of their starring tour, in many cities of the republic, and everywhere they met with kindness and honour.
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