Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/188

154 After finishing these magnificent works, which Michelangelo, we are told, not only admired, but strove to imitate, Fra Filippo left Prato in 1465, taking his wife, who had lately given birth to a daughter named Alessandra, and his two children with him, and went to Spoleto. Here his old patrons, the Medici, had obtained the important work of decorating the choir of the Cathedral, for this strange protégé, whom they had helped through so many difficulties, and whom, in spite of his sins, they never forsook. During the next four years, Fra Lippo devoted his energies to these frescoes at Spoleto. Chief among them is the great Coronation, on the vaulting of the semi-dome, with its grand central group encircled by a living, moving host of angels, dancing on the clouds, singing and scattering flowers, playing harpsichords, or swinging censers in the air. There is none of the blessed peace and repose of Angelico's Paradise, but all is gaiety and movement, light and joy. The robes of the Madonna herself, and of Angels and Saints, are thickly embroidered with gold, roses bloom on the trees of the garden, and glittering seraphs wave tall lilies in their hands or stoop and gather flowers. The fresco has been sadly damaged and badly restored, but enough remains to show us the fine conception and glowing colour of the original work, which made Vasari exclaim, when he stopped at Spoleto, on his way from Rome, "Cosa molta bella! Fù gran uomo!"—"What a beautiful thing! Truly, the Friar was a great man!" The Death of the Virgin, on the wall of the choir, recalls the Burial of St. Stephen, at Prato, and the sorrow-stricken expression on the face of St. John, who kneels with the other Apostles near the