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Those which hover round the Cross in the fresco of the 'Crucifixion' are as passionate as any angels of the Giottesque masters in Assisi. Those again which crowd the Stable of Bethlehem in the 'Nativity' yield no point of idyllic charm to Gozzoli's in the Riccardi Chapel.
This Simone was a pupil of Giotto and the painter of a portrait of Petrarch's Laura, now preserved in the Laurentian library, which earned him two sonnets of eulogy. Neroccio did the landscape and figures; the other the architecture, and very fine it is. Gozzoli's predella is No. 1302. Finally, look at No. 64, which shows how prettily certain imitators of Fra Angelico could paint.
"For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips." Prov. viii. 7. Gozzoli's picture is now in the Louvre. I think Guillaume de Saint Amour takes the place of Averroes. Inf. iv. 144. Averroès et l'Averroïsme, pp. 236-316. In the chapel. They are the work of Taddeo di Bartolo, and bear this inscription: "Specchiatevi in costoro, voi che reggete."
For that is the Medici's home; and afterwards we will step into S. Lorenzo and see the church which Brunelleschi and Donatello made beautiful and Michelangelo wonderful that the Medici might lie there. Visitors go to the Riccardi palace rather to see Gozzoli's frescoes than anything else; and indeed apart from the noble solid Renaissance architecture of Michelozzo there is not much else to see.
It is comparatively seldom visited by the ordinary tourist, and is thoroughly unique and interesting. In the second place, in its Cathedral are most valuable examples of Fra Angelico's, Benozzo Gozzoli's, and Signorelli's paintings; and, in the third place, I love the little old city, and never can go to or from Rome without spending at least a few hours there if it is possible for me to do so.
Those which hover round the Cross in the fresco of the "Crucifixion" are as passionate as any angels of the Giottesque masters in Assisi. Those, again, which crowd the Stable of Bethlehem in the "Nativity" yield no point of idyllic charm to Gozzoli's in the Riccardi Chapel.
When therefore Piero, after becoming head of the family, decided to decorate the chapel with a procession of Magi, it is not surprising that the painter should recall this historic occasion. Piero's second son Giuliano is on the white horse, preceded by a negro carrying his bow. The head immediately above Giuliano I do not know, but that one a little to the left above it is Gozzoli's own.
Thus we see the men and women of the Renaissance in the works of all its painters: heavy in Ghirlandajo, vulgarly jaunty in Filippino, preposterously starched and prim in Mantegna, ludicrously undignified in Signorelli; while mediæval stiffness, awkwardness, and absurdity reach their acme perhaps in the little boys, companions of the Medici children, introduced into Benozzo Gozzoli's Building of Babel.
It is difficult, for instance, to comprehend how M. Rio could devote two pages to Gozzoli's "Destruction of Sodom," so comparatively unimpressive in spite of its aggregated incidents, when he passes by the "Fulminati" of Signorelli, so tragic in its terrible simplicity, with a word.
He drove us up to S. Gimignano and told us that the people still hold the figures in Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes to be portraits of themselves and say: "That's me," and "That's so and so." Of course we went to see the frescoes, and as we were coming down the main street, from the Piazza on which the Municipio stands, who should be mounting the incline but our bishop and his lady.
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