Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/216

180 and incense, is certainly his best work in Florence. The fair-haired youth, wearing a violet cap and red vest with black sleeves, in the group of spectators standing on the piazza, is said to be Pico della Mirandola, the brilliant humanist and favourite companion of Lorenzo de' Medici. An altar-piece of the Assumption, which Cosimo painted in this same church, bears the date of 1498, and a Coronation of the Virgin, in the Chapel of the Giglio family, which he executed for the Cistercian monks' old church of Cestello, now S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, was only begun in December 1505. A year afterwards, in November 1506, Cosimo Rosselli made his will, and the considerable amount of property which he owned refutes Vasari's assertion that he died very poor, having consumed all his substance in the vain pursuit of alchemy, to which he devoted his last years. He died on the 7th of January, leaving only one illegitimate son, named Giuliano, who became an architect. No work bearing Rosselli's name is to be found in the National Gallery, but quite recently Mr Berenson has recognised this master's hand in the little picture of the Combat between Love and Chastity, ascribed to the Florentine School, and which certainly bears a marked resemblance both to the similar allegory at Turin and to the Vision of the Virgin in the fresco of S. Filippo Benizzi in the Servi church.

Although Cosimo's creations are, for the most part, dull and formal, and lack the charm of true artistic inspiration, he was an excellent teacher, who understood the technical side of his art thoroughly, and numbered some of the best painters of the next