Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/157

1457] Seneschal of Naples, and of the Hospodar, Filippo Scolari, as well as the figures of the Cumœan Sibyls, Queen Esther and Thomyris, Queen of the Amazons, were safely transferred to canvas, and now hang in the Museum of S. Apollonia. All of these figures are distinguished by the same sculptural austerity of design and vivacity of expression, and the warriors Farinata and Pippo Spano standing with swords in their hands and legs apart, bear a striking resemblance to Donatello's St. George. The same fiery spirit and vigorous reality mark the equestrian portrait of Niccolò da Tolentino, which Andrea executed in 1455, as a companion to that of Sir John Hawkwood, but both horse and warrior lack something of the distinction which belongs to Paolo Uccello's conception.

Unfortunately the important series of frescoes of the Virgin's life, which Andrea painted in the Chapel of S. Egidio, belonging to the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, between 1450 and 1453, have perished, and only a Trinity, with an emaciated St. Jerome and other Saints, remains of those which he executed in the Medici Chapel of the Annunziata.

But two frescoes of the Crucifixion which Andrea painted, as Vasari tells us, in the convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli, adjoining the hospital, are still in existence. One of these remains in the ancient court of the hospital; the other has been removed to the Uffizi. It is a noble example of the master's dramatic powers, which are nowhere better displayed than in the figure of St. John at the foot of the cross.