Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/110

84 beyond the loggia roof and the long arcades of the court, the Saint's disciples are seen bearing their master's remains to his burial, in a mountain landscape that strongly resembles the backgrounds of Ghiberti's reliefs.

After the year 1435—which is the date inscribed on the Baptistery frescoes—we have no further record of Masolino, and it is only on the strength of internal evidence that another series of frescoes in the basilica of S. Clemente, in Rome, can be ascribed to him. These paintings, which Vasari attributes to Masaccio, are now generally recognised to be by the elder master, and are supposed by many critics to have been early works executed between 1417 and 1420, when Branda di Castiglione was titular Cardinal of S. Clemente. But the great advance in the style of these frescoes renders it inconceivable that they should belong to an earlier date than those at Castiglione, and Dr. Wickhoff is no doubt right in assigning them to the last years of Masolino's life, when another Lombard prelate, Enrico di Allosio was Cardinal of S. Clemente. On the right wall of the chapel are four scenes from the life of St Ambrose, that favourite Milanese saint. In the first, the Saint is seen lying as a babe in his cradle, where he is attacked by a swarm of bees, which his nursemaid vainly endeavours to drive away, but which, to the amazement of his parents, do him no injury. In the second, his election as Bishop of Milan is decided by the sudden appearance of the Christ-Child, who singles him out as chosen of God for the office. The third represents an incident in one of St. Ambrose's journeys, when the house of a rich nobleman who had