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We have left the golden hills and laughing valleys of Tuscany behind us as we approach that desert part of it where the gray chalk cliffs stretch out into the Maremma in long narrow tongues of rock, not far from Siena.
But, after Agostino had gone on some business to Siena, taking Giovanni Antonio with him, while staying there he was forced, being a Chevalier without an income, to set himself to painting; and so he painted an altar-piece containing a Christ taken down from the Cross, on the ground Our Lady in a swoon, and a man in armour who, having his back turned, shows his front reflected in a helmet that is on the ground, bright as a mirror.
Ridolfo was the only one who chose the family profession, and he became the fourth painter of the name of Ghirlandajo. Davide was not a perfect artist, although a good mosaicist, as his works in the cathedrals of Orvieto, Siena, and Florence show, but he was for many years Ridolfo's only instructor.
Superficially, much of the present charm of Siena consists in the soft opening valleys, the glimpses of long blue hills and fertile country-side, framed by irregular brown houses stretching along the slopes on which the town is built, and losing themselves abruptly in olive fields and orchards.
The "Triumph of S. Thomas Aquinas," in this cloister-chapel, has long been declared the work of Taddeo Gaddi. "The Triumph of the Church Militant," and the "Consecration of S. Dominic," used to be ascribed, on the faith of Vasari, to Simone Martini of Siena. Independently of its main subject, this vast wall-painting is specially interesting on account of its portraits.
The torchlight procession of burghers swearing amity by couples in the cathedral there described, receives exact pictorial illustration in the fresco of the Sala della Pace . Siena, by her bloody factions and her passionate peacemakings, expressed in daily action what the painter had depicted on her palace walls.
The Whitsuntide recess passed for the wanderers in Italy in a glorious prodigality of sun, a rushing of bud and leaf to "feed in air," a twittering of birds, a splendor of warm nights, which for once indorsed the traditional rhapsodies of the poets. The little party of friends which had met at Assisi moved on together to Siena and Perugia, except for Marion Vincent and Frobisher.
* To-morrow we're starting for Florence, Truly rejoiced, you may guess, to escape from republican terrors; Sir. C. and Papa to escort us; we by vettura Through Siena, and Georgy to follow and join us by Leghorn. Then Ah, what shall I say, my dearest? I tremble in thinking! You will imagine my feelings, the blending of hope and of sorrow! How can I bear to abandon Papa and Mamma and my sisters?
Giovanni Antonio carried it on to such purpose that he painted four altar-pieces: but these, at a later date, appeared to Sebastiano della Seta, the new Warden, to be all in the same manner, and somewhat less beautiful than the first, and he allotted to Domenico Beccafumi of Siena after proving his worth from some pictures that he painted round the sacristy, which are very beautiful an altar-piece which he executed in Pisa.
Though she had not been with the others at Siena, it seemed to Longueville, with regard to her, too, that this was not the first time he had seen her. She was simply the American pretty girl, whom he had seen a thousand times. It was a numerous sisterhood, pervaded by a strong family likeness.
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