Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/221

1498] golden lilies, was painted by Piero when that prince visited Florence in 1471, and hung in the Medici Palace for many years; while his fresco of St. Christopher, at San Miniato outside the gates, which excited the admiration of Michel Angelo, may be the same which has now been removed to the Metropolitan Museum at New York. Another characteristic work by Piero, the Annunciation, now at Berlin, is remarkable for its fine Renaissance architecture and variegated marbles, as well as for the profusion of pearls and gems which adorn the angel's robes and the Virgin's chair. Three kneeling cherubs, playing the organ, lute and viol, are seen in the inner chamber, and the open windows display a wide view of Florence and the Val d'Arno. The same Museum contains Antonio's admirable little picture of David, standing bare-headed, with sling in his hand and legs astride, over Goliath's head—a marvel of youthful life and triumphant action. But the most famous and best preserved of all the Pollaiuoli's paintings is the great St. Sebastian which Antonio painted, in 1475, for the chapel of the Pucci in the Servi church, and which was bought from the Marchese Pucci, in 1857, by the trustees of the National Gallery. This picture of the Saint bound to the trunk of a tree in the foreground of a wide Tuscan landscape, and surrounded by six archers, either aiming their shafts at his body or loading their cross-bows, has no particular beauty of line or grouping, but as a masterpiece of vigorous action and life-like movement it remains unrivalled. "The work," Vasari records, "was more praised than any other ever painted by Antonio. In his determination