Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/197

1498] well as several frescoes in the Church of S. Fortunato and twelve scenes from the life of St. Francis in the choir of the Franciscan church. The old stories which Giotto had painted 150 years before, in the neighbouring town of Assisi, are here repeated by Angelico's pupil in his master's style, with the addition of groups of men and women in contemporary costumes, and many homely incidents of his own invention. The portraits of Dante, Giotto, and Petrarch are introduced among the medallions of Franciscan saints under the windows, each with an appropriate Latin inscription, which reminds us of the humanist tendencies of the age. Dante is described as "a theologian, ignorant of no learning," Petrarch as "the laureate, monarch of all virtues," while Giotto is called "the foundation and light of painting." A side-chapel in the same church was also decorated by Benozzo, and contains a graphic representation of St. Jerome pulling out the thorn from the lion's foot, in the presence of a band of terrified friars. In 1453, he executed another series of frescoes on the life of S. Rosa of Lima in a convent at Viterbo, which were still in existence in the seventeenth century. On his way back to Florence, Benozzo visited Perugia and painted the Madonna and Saints, which is now in the town gallery, and bears the date of 1456. Both this altar-piece and the Montefalco frescoes were destined to have a marked influence on the development of the Umbrian School. The poetic naturalism and love of ornament, together with that tender devotional feeling which Benozzo inherited from his master, appealed in an especial manner to the