Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/204

168 of the haste and carelessness of drawing which too often marred his work. The subject was admirably suited to his powers, and none of his later frescoes are as entirely successful as these in the Medici Chapel.

His position as the best fresco-painter of the day was now established, and new commissions poured in upon him from all sides. In 1461, he painted the Madonna and Saints, with angels crowned with roses, and goldfinches on the alabaster steps of the throne, which is now in the National Gallery. This fine altar-piece was executed for the Confraternity of S. Marco, which had its Oratory close to the Dominican convent, and Benozzo was expressly desired to imitate Fra Angelico's Virgin, in the neighbouring church, as exactly as possible, and to allow no assistant to help him, but to promise to do the whole work himself, as well, or, if possible, better than any other which he had yet accomplished. About this time he married a girl named Mona Lena, who was twenty years younger than himself and bore him a family of seven children. In the same year he bought a house in the Via del Cocomero, as well as lands outside the walls, and was in prosperous circumstances during the rest of his life, being, as Vasari remarks, both indefatigable in his industry and irreproachable in his conduct.

In 1463, he went to the mountain city of San Gimignano, and there, in Dante's "town of the beautiful towers," he painted another great cycle of frescoes on the life of St. Augustine. This time his patron was Domenico Strambi, a learned Augustinian