Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/152

122 great and original master. The representation of the Flood is a striking and dramatic composition, remarkable not only for the knowledge of anatomy and foreshortening displayed in the nude figures, but for the vivid realisation of the scene and of the different emotions which it arouses. The desperate struggles of the drowning men and women in the water, the youth with his soaked garments and wind-blown hair, clinging to the side of the ark, and the man trying to keep himself up by the help of a tub, are all wonderfully represented; while the dove flying home across the waters with the olive-leaf in her beak, brings an element of peace and hope into the scene of desolation. Equally impressive in its way is the patriarchal group of Noah's sons and daughters, kneeling round the altar, in flowing draperies that recall Masaccio's designs, and the foreshortened figure of God the Father brooding like a cloud over the scene, with a mystic grandeur not unworthy of Michel Angelo himself. These works of Paolo Uccello made the Chiostro Verde a school of drawing little inferior in fame to the Brancacci Chapel, and there can be no doubt that both Signorelli and Buonarroti were among the artists who came to study in the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella during the next fifty years.

Another admirable work by this artist which has fortunately been preserved, is the Miracle of the Host, which Paolo painted for the Confraternity of Corpus Domini at Urbino, in 1468. He was seventy-two years of age, but the picture shows no sign of failing powers. The dramatic tale of the wealthy Jew's wife who threw the Host into the fire, and the swift vengeance that overtook the family which had