Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/249

1510] looks up in her face with a sudden flash of inspiration. Two angels place a crown upon her head, two others hold her book and inkstand, and between the bowed faces we catch a lovely glimpse of the Arno valley. At this moment when Mary realises all her glory, when angels crown her brows, and the Child guides her pen to write the words that pronounced her blessed, the sword pierces her heart with a foretaste of coming agony. In this wonderful picture Sandro has attained an ideal of divine tenderness and sorrow which few painters have ever equalled.

An unfinished picture, evidently designed by our master, has lately been brought out of the magazines of the Uffizi, and, although coarsely re-painted, is of deep interest as showing his close connection with the piagnone movement. The seven magistrates of Florence are represented kneeling before Mary and her Child, while Savonarola himself, standing by in his Dominican habit, points with outstretched arm to the new-born King, and turning to Lorenzo de' Medici at his side, adjures him to own the supremacy of Christ. A great concourse of horsemen and spectators are crowding through the city-gates, and among the foremost figures we recognise the portraits of Benivieni, the favourite poet of the Medici, who had become a devout piagnone, and of Leonardo, who was one of the architects summoned by Savonarola to draw up plans for the hall of the Great Council. The picture was evidently painted to commemorate the events of 1495, when, after the death of Lorenzo and expulsion of his sons, Christ was proclaimed King of Florence, the City of God.

Through the troublous times that followed, Sandro