Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/210

174 ficiency in scenes like the Destruction of Sodom, where, in spite of all his efforts, he fails to impart the energy of despair, or even the haste of a panic-stricken crowd, to the fugitives on whose heads the avenging fire is in the act of falling. He is far more successful in a subject such as the Adoration of the Magi, which he introduces among these Old Testament subjects, over the chapel door, and in which he appears himself, mounted on a brown horse. Here again, he could fall back on Ghiberti and Angelico's models, while many of his own figures in the Medici Chapel and the church of San Girnignano are repeated.

The final payment which Benozzo received for the last fresco of the series, the Visit of the Queen of Sheba, bears the date of May 11, 1484. During the sixteen years that he worked at the Campo Santo, he had found time to execute frescoes at Volterra and Castel Fiorentino, as well as altar-pieces for the churches and convents of Pisa and the neighbourhood, the best of which is the Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, now in the Louvre. In this fine picture, which was originally painted for the Cathedral of Pisa, the Angelic Doctor is represented, throned between Plato and Aristotle, with his vanquished rival, Guillaume de St. Amour, the learned professor of the University of Paris, lying at his feet, while the Pope is seen below pronouncing the decree of the Saint's canonization.

The painter had taken his family with him to Pisa, where he bought a house of his own in the Via S. Maria, and brought his old father, Lese di Sandro, to spend his last days under his roof. But he still owned a house in Florence, and paid occasional visits to his native city. In the income-tax return of 1480, he describes