Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/206

170 city—the Coliseum, Pantheon, Column of Trajan and Pyramid of Cestus—but also the towers and battlements, the loggias and campaniles of the modern city into a single picture. Troops of cavaliers and pages in rich brocades, leading gaily caparisoned horses, escort the Saint on his journey, and fair Milanese ladies, in contemporary costumes, sit under Augustine's pulpit, listening to his sermons, or watch by the death-bed of Monica. Here and there we find little bits of life reproduced with rare felicity—young mothers with children clinging fondly to their arms, girls carrying baskets, and boys at play in the streets, or else a knot of friars bending down and pressing their heads close together, eager to catch the new teacher's words. The last and finest of the whole series is the Death of the Saint. Here, like most Quattrocento masters, he takes Giotto's Death of St. Francis, in Santa Croce, for his model, and represents Augustine in mitre and pontifical robes, lying on a rich mortuary couch, surrounded by a large company of monks and ecclesiastics, who perform the last rites and give vent to their grief in the most passionate manner. The variety of expression on the faces of the mourners is very striking, while the grouping of the figures and the graceful lines of the convent buildings in the background make an admirable picture. Unfortunately, Benozzo too often traded on his reputation, and the numerous altar-pieces which he painted for neighbouring churches and convents, during the three years that he spent at San Gimignano, are executed with a haste and carelessness that are quite unworthy of him. No doubt,