Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/403

 Painting in Florence. 373 heads, — especially those of the Madonnas and Child-angels, — the grandeur and grace of the drapery,* and the beauty of the architectural backgrounds. As three typical works, we may name the Madonna della Misericordia at Lucca ; the S. Mark, in the Pitti Palace, Florence ; and the Presentation in the Temple, in the Belvedere at Vienna. The Grosvenor House Gallery contains a small but very interesting Holy Family from the same great hand. Intimately connected with the life of Fra Bartolommeo is that of Mariotto Albertinelli (1474 — 1515), his fellow student in the bottega of Cosimo Rosselli. In 1509 they entered into partnership, and conjointly executed many works. Albertinelli was very similar in his style to his more famous friend. A nun, Suor Plautilla Nelli, successfully imitated Fra Bartolommeo' s style in many works. To sum up the progress made since the opening of the fifteenth century — we find imitation of nature no longer imaginary but real : the laws of perspective had been fathomed and turned to practical account by Paolo Uccelli, Piero de' Francesci, Luca Signorelli, and their followers; great improvements had been effected in types of form, anatomical correctness, and physical beauty, by Masaccio, and his followers, at Florence; Squarcione at Padua, and Mantegna at Mantua; love for spiritual beauty had been embodied in the works of Fra Angelico at Florence, Perugino at Pome, Francia at Bologna, and Fja Bartolommeo at Florence; whilst the true principles of figures) which have been so useful in promoting the better study of the fall of drapery.
 * Fra Bartolommeo invented the jointed wooden figures (lay-